Hex: Shards of Fate - Is Pro tier still sold out?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Hex: Shards of Fate - Is Pro tier still sold out?

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

An early alpha goon tournament sounds fun, if only to watch everyone's crazy homebrew decks before any kind of meta has formed.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2013 22:06

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:01

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

King Burgundy posted:

Yeah, my keep will be named King Burgundy if they allow spaces. That is certainly going to be weird.

You could always name your champions as titles so your name works in a different way, like

Jester of King Burgundy
Butler of King Burgundy
Boytoy of King Burgundy

# ¿ Sep 27, 2013 22:36

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I wish they'd put up the full spoiler already, I really wanna brew up a ruby/sapphire artifact deck before alpha if possible. For that matter, what's everyone planning on building/trying out first once they get in alpha?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2013 15:01

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

New blog post by Cory

Not sure how I feel about how confident he feels about the success of the product in terms of playerbase and community, but it's nice he's fully aware that everything will crash and burn at launch due to server issues and isn't like every single developer ever who says they can handle it. Definitely worth a read anyway!

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 23:22

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Vincent Valentine posted:

Yo cory,

If any of these are Pro Player tier let me swap my dungeon crawler tier for one of them thanks in advance

Your friend,
Disneyland

It's a pity really, although a quick google search turns up nothing I have no doubt that people have sold on pro player accounts for a profit in private so the chances of someone both

a) Didn't want to play HeX after fronting 150
b) Not aware that there are a LOT of people in your position who are willing to front mad cash

Are slim

, did you only find out about HeX after they all disappeared or did you think about it and wait too late?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 00:03

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

drat that's handy to know, I just hope they get the interface to the point that MTGO has for drafting, being able to hide cards is really nice.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 13:01

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Hugoon Chavez posted:

Jesus Christ can this game release already

While it's a lot more fun than it was 2 months ago, it's nowhere near finished and to push for release sooner rather than later can only hurt the game in the long term. Why do you want it released now out of interest?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2014 13:19

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Popping back into the game now and seeing the improvements they made, this is great! The functionality needs to get there a bit but the interface in gameplay is smooth and actually works consistently, and the out-of-match interface is getting there gradually. It's starting to feel a hell of a lot more like a game and less like a proof of concept which is reassuring, I can't wait for tournaments to come along so I begin drafting, I've only played like 4 matches ever as I just could not deal with the constant inability to ever finish games, so I'm looking forward to forcing red/blue every draft.

How is U/R Dwarves in limited anyway? Seems like the depth of cards is just good enough to support a really cool durdly deck consistently.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 22:51

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I'm intrigued, how do I get gold, is it only through tournaments that we can't participate in at the moment?

Tangentially related, on the Hex twitter they are referring to a detailed 'update' on the tournament situation today - while it's nice to have information I think it's important to note the phrasing, I'm not sure tournaments will be up and running today.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 09:56

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I just won my first draft tournament with mono-green bunnies after opening a Grand Concubunny pack one. I didn't draft too many shin'hare and often sideboarded out my lovely 1 drops but it was an effective deck!

MVP goes to Honeycap for putting in solid work every game I got a chance to play one, but the Concubunny led to such a blowout in the finals. I had a Concubunny spawn a Ritualist of the Spring Litter. The next turn the Concubunny spawns 2 more Ritualists (one frmo the Concubunny, cloned by Ritualist), next turn the Concubunny spawns 4 godamn 3/3 bunnies that each give me health equal to the number of creatures I control. My opponent snap conceded after I shot up to 76 health

.

The green plant constant is neat too, seems a bit slow for constructed play but it was pretty fun to play with.

# ¿ May 7, 2014 00:23

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

gameday posted:

Anyone planning on streaming? I'm moving house for a while and won't have a chance to draft for weeks and weeks.

As soon as I am sure drafts are stable I'll be streaming - probably will post a link in IRC, maybe the thread too if posting such links is kosher.

# ¿ May 8, 2014 19:50

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

There was talk of a spreadsheet for tracking draft results in the thread at some point, did anything ever come of that? I'm tooling around with a magic one right now but it's not perfect for obvious reasons.

# ¿ May 8, 2014 19:55

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Well gently caress it, I'll stream some drafting:

http://www.twitch.tv/lightreaper/

# ¿ May 8, 2014 21:15

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

What is the benefit to rolling on legendary chests? I'm wondering what happens when you roll 'upgrade chest', I assume nothing? I'm trying to imagine why it's worth spending the 30k gold when one of the results is flat out bad. Is the quality of the bonuses increased on better chests?

# ¿ May 9, 2014 00:31

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Niedar posted:

Don't know if it is any good but here. http://www.thresholdpodcast.com/hex-shards-of-fate-review-commons-and-uncommons/

It is a podcast but they also link to a spreadsheet that has all the rankings they talk about and a small comment.

Granted, I've not listened to the podcast and probably won't, but some of the rankings/justifications on this site are very dubious and I'm not sure I'd take these rankings as gospel. Like the above link these are just opinions and will change based on your playstyle.

Blood
- They rate Determined Zombie poorly, with the justification that it isn't as good as Rigid Buffalo, ignoring that the Rigid Buffalo is 2 threshold to DZ's 1 which matters a great deal in drafting. If you're a 2 color deck (you often are), being unable to play your early game troop early because it's turn 2 and you've got 2 shards of another color leaves this stranded in your hand.
- Gives Shadow Rend a B- when it's a very niche card at Sorcery speed, now regardless of your opinion of it's power (I think it's garbage), I'm sure we can all agree that it is not Quote "A reliable card you want to draft if you are in Blood"
- Shin'hare Eulogist gets a D with the reasoning essentially being "Don't draft Shin'hare", which is both unhelpful and not accurate. Shin'hare decks are powerful IF you get enough of a synergy going, and even if you don't go all in on Shin'hare this plus the Battle Hopper Champion and a few other Shin'hare makes this a great value card.
Now obviously this is personal opinion but straight up telling a new player "DON'T DRAFT THIS CARD" because of a perceived weakness in an archetype is a bad idea. What if Shin'hare is open? You make up for a weakness in individual strength with great synergy (hey, just like dwarves!).
- Wall of Corpses is hilariously bad and the fact it gets a B makes me wonder what their justification is. Drafting wisdom from MTG typically ranks purely defensive creatures as dredge you want to avoid, and this card has absolutely no attack and doesn't get you any closer to winning the game.
- Shamed Gladiator is better than these guys give it credit for, a 2 mana 2/2 is fine - sure you take 2 damage but you also get a wealth of options with the socket, and often times just having early game board control will result in a win. If you're also Sapphire you get Flight, if you're in Diamond you can make it a 3/3, etc... It's flexibility gives it a place in nearly any deck, but it's like they saw the race was Orc and dismissed it to only be used in Orc decks. I'd give it a C+ if not a B-

Diamond
- Loregoyle is yet another one of the mystifying B cards. You should not want a 0 power defensive card in your deck, let alone one in an typically aggressive color.
- Now I've not played with Protectorate Sorcerer yet but if I'm interpreting the rules text right you will always want to be exhausting their best blocker anyway and do so before they get a chance to assign blockers - this card seems really good??????
- Rates Repel as a B+ card, then says it is better than Inner Conflict (A-), which is a minor thing but might confuse a new player. Why is their ranking so inconsistent?
- Gives Reversion a C+ with the justification being "Cory says its good!". This isn't helpful information!
- They didn't rate this card badly, but Stoneskin gives protection from so many effects that it will always have a place in your deck, and I'll give some examples as to why:
Your opponent blocks your troops with a combat trick/kill spell in hand, which would turn an unfavorable trade into a favorable one for him. Suddenly their combat trick didn't do anything and you kill a blocker for free, congrats on your 2 for 1!
Protect your bomb from an enemy kill spell, self explanatory.
Stop those big burn spells Blood and Ruby have that you otherwise have no way of interacting with.
And many more! Take this card!

Ruby
- A 5 mana 5/4 is fine, Bloodcrazed Zealot deserves a C, not a D. Now obviously you ideally want better cards at the top of your curve but this isn't a bad card, just a mediocre one.
- Fiendish Cabalist is fantastic in an aggro deck when you can play it early. In an ideal scenario it first attacks as a 2 mana 5/6 on turn 3, in a less than ideal scenario its what, a 2 mana 1/2? Is that really the worst? The upside is so brutal that this deserves a C.
- Shadowblade Lurker is a curve filler, a 3 mana 2/3 isn't the drizzling shits and sometimes having a weak deck doesn't matter when you're consistently hitting your 2/3/4 mana creature drops. This is a D+, potentially a C if you're light on 3 mana creatures. Never an F.
- Sniper of Gawaine is a D+!? No wonder I keep seeing this card wheel in drafts, this card is stupid good value and only gets better with Inspire.

Sapphire
- Mystic of the Tranquil Dream should essentially read: 2/4 flying for 4, as that's very often the only socket you'll want to put in this. Judge it as a 2/4 flyer for 4 and this is a C+ if not a B-, just a great evasive threat that's resistant to removal.
- I don't buy their reasoning for giving Stoneclaw Gargoyle a C-, you can always discard the card you draw and it can turn a dead card into something more useful. 3/3 Flier for 5 is reasonable and I think his ability pushes this to a C.

I may or may not continue with the rest, but I think this serves to prove that evaluations are subjective and although they are a good resource don't lean on them too hard.

# ¿ May 9, 2014 19:50

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I think I'm falling for mono sapphire robots as a deck archetype in draft as I've now won my 3rd tournament with the archetype. It has game against pretty much any deck just due to great defensive creatures and a solid gameplan that has lots of redundancy. Here's the ridiculous pile I was working with:

The two turreted walls were main deck just to hedge my bets against aggressive strategies game one and they were almost always boarded out game two, in fact it's consistently under-performed for me - it's just such a shame that it's not a robot. I could have gone R/S and had a nice splash in the pyromancers and snipers but I wanted the consistency of a turn one gearsmith into turn two thunderbird which is just such a great one two punch. This was just such a great list to work with that came about from cutting Sapphire super heavy pack one and I'm now a big advocate of sticking MOSTLY to one color pack one if the first few packs are light on said color.

And yet another draft where people leave Snipers in the pack super late - there are so many 2 toughness creatures which are powerful in the format that I continue to be mystified by the communities lack of interest in that card.

# ¿ May 10, 2014 23:04

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I'll add +1 to the 'Robots are best archetype' tally - All things being equal in P1P1 (assuming a junk rare) I'll pick a couple of broad applications Sapphire cards, then if I see a decent signal (such as a pick 4-9 Pterobot, Gearsmith or Volcannon) I'll fight and claw for every last Robot card. I personally prefer mono Sapphire robots just because of the consistent turn 1 Gearsmith but if an elimination specialist gets passed to me I'll do everything I can to add Ruby.

# ¿ May 12, 2014 08:53

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Gross Dude posted:

I just did a draft where I'm pretty sure no one wanted to play removal.

Here's the deck sans shards:

1 Buccaneer
1 Captain of the Dragon Guard
3 Construction Plans: War Hulk
1 Devited Enussary
2 Gearsmith
1 Heroic Inspiration
2 Inner Conflict
1 Mastery of Time
1 Oracle Song
3 Peek
1 Polymorph Dingler
3 Repel
2 Time Ripple
1 Wind Whisperer

My concern is that it is VERY reactionary, and the gear smiths don't seem that good with only 3 artifacts, but the construction plans are my main focus. I"m going to pick the the guy that makes robots with his charges and just try to hold out until I get some war hulks online. Maybe it'll suck, but I'm excited to try this deck out.

E: Also, mastery of time doesn't seem that good in draft.

E: I lost first round, whee

This is a deck that has a ton of individually very powerful cards but altogether it's unsurprising that this deck lost first round, but it's a perfect opportunity to improve:

You have six creatures in your deck, which is a very low baseline. Of these, you have 2 one mana creatures, 2 three mana creatures, a 4 mana creature and a 6 mana creature. Generally in draft formats a low creature count deck is a bad idea because it puts immense pressure on you to both draw your removal spells and also draw as many removal spells as they have creatures. Counting the semi-removal spells (heroic inspiration, time ripple and the buccaneer) you have 10 removal spells. Generally its good practice for a draft deck to have between like 12-19 creatures depending on how controlling deck is, and as you can see assuming perfect draws you're still going to fall behind in terms of impact on the board.
Related to this, Heroic Inspiration works best in a deck with lots of creatures, and with only 6 + whatever worker bots you get from your champion (generally 2-3 over the course of a game) you will very often find yourself with no legal targets for this spell, which means its useless in a large number of scenarios.
Captain of the Dragon Guard has no good recycle targets, as again you have very few creatures and those you do have are not something you want to cast twice. Along the same lines Devoted Emissary is a bad choice here as if there are no other creatures on your side of the board when you cast it, you are forced to return the Emissary to your hand.
I can see what you were going with with the inclusion of the gearsmith and construction plans, but the robot cards rely heavily on synergy, and you don't have a density of robots/artifacts required to make gearsmith a worthy inclusion. Assuming you cast Gearsmith turn 1 you have a roughly 10% chance to hit your construction plans - and even if you do play those construction plans, you have 2-5 (depending on how many charges you get on your champion) valid targets to add counters to the artifact. Taking into account your opponent will be trying to kill your creatures to the possibiliy of ever getting a War Hulk is slim. It's also generally a bad idea to run 3 construction plans in any dwarf deck, just because drawing a second one while still making the first is a dead draw.

A solid gameplan in any draft is to aim to have at least 12 playable creatures, of which most of them should be cheaper (between 1 and 3 mana) with a few expensive creatures capable of winning the game by themselves if left unchecked (these are generally referred to as bombs). This is a strange instance in which you drafted a ton of removal which is a good thing, but you don't have any real way to actually win the game.

# ¿ May 13, 2014 11:58

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

*snip*

Thanks for the link, this is certainly useful for a layman such as myself. I still worry that as I understand it, they are pushing for a jury - which is bad in the sense that the Jury may be sympathetic to WOTC's cause just because of a misunderstanding of the nature of copyright law.

# ¿ May 28, 2014 14:22

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

I would imagine that the account level level-up process has a lot more going for it then, as mentioned here:

quote:

With that in mind we have two systems. One leveling system is meta-based and affects your entire account. This system will supply perks to your account that you can pick and choose and use with each champion. Stuff like additional gold drops in dungeons, no limit to hand size, or an extra beginning game re-draw.

Keep in mind that these were examples, not necessarily every single kind of thing you can expect from the system.

Edit: That said, that doesn't really address the claims of false advertising I'll admit. I will say that this will probably be more sustainable balance-wise and make them more money though. Games like Dota 2 and League of Legends really benefit from having 'in each match' leveling systems, as they narrow the gap between the new player and the veteran more. People like that.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 15:15

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Karnegal posted:

Rares with bad art:
Surge Mechanism
Bird o' Plenty
Inferno
Kindling Skarn
Uzume, Grand Concubunny
I think Hop'hiro looks goofy as hell but that would be 3 arts

Why you hating on bunnies? Uzume I think has nice art (detail, shading and the fold lines in her robe is some nice attention to detail) and Hop'hiro is indeed goofy but like you said, varied art-styles are appreciated. I'm really looking forward to set two as I'm hoping their will be a lot of coyotle and they could do some real cool abstract stuff with them - alot of their cards already look great, such as dream dance, chimes of the zodiac & mutate. Mentor of the Song looks generically pretty nice but I hope it's not their baseline for set 2 coyotle.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 13:48

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

My Diamond/Sapphire deck I've been testing is just begging for instant speed card draw, I hope that gets added sooner rather than later. While I'm at it, anyone got any critique for the deck? I've made an effort to not just netdeck and keep it relatively toolbox-y.

Diamond/Sapphire Control

4 x Cerulean Mirror Knight
4 x Peek
2 x Time Ripple
4 x Living Totem
4 x Buccaneer
1 x Mesmerize
4 x Countermagic
2 x Solitary Exile
1 x Inner Conflict
3 x Eldritch Dreamer (socketed with the do damage draw a card gem)
2 x Splinter of Azathoth
4 x Angel of Dawn
13 x Sapphire Shard
8 x Diamond Shard
4 x Shards of fate

Sideboard:

1 x Reversion
3 x Flock of Seagulls
2 x Arcane Shield
1 x Frost Wizard
1 x Repel
1 x Immortality
1 x Mesmerize
2 x Polymorph: Dingler
2 x Yesterday
1 x Diamond Aura

I just recently swapped in the splinters, they were previously Wizards of the Silver Talon, but while the interaction between mirror knights and them was sweet, it didn't really fit the controlling nature of the deck. Be as merciless as you'd like with critique, as I've got the tendency to try and play with cards that aren't super effective, but just fun to play with.

Karnegal posted:

^^^ It would be nice if they made some AA for solidly playable cards - Extinction was a KS reward being a good example

She just looks off to me. Maybe she looks a little less human and more bunny than most of the others? Also the rabbits in the foreground are weirdly lacking in detail- they look like stuffed toys rather than juvenile Shin'Hare. I get using less detail on background images, but it seems weird with an element in the foreground that we're presumably supposed to be looking at. Compare to Ritualist of the Spring Litter where the baby rabbits are also similarly rendered, but the style carries over to the adult rabbit.

Yeah, it's a shame that the rabbits aren't as detailed, maybe the artist just wanted to keep attention focused on Uzume.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 16:33

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Vincent Valentine posted:

Every time bad art comes up people somehow forget Crushing Blow. It's a good combat trick so it's a card worth using but is the worst art in the game without question, making it a top contender for alternate art.

Exhibit A in the case against Veteran Gladiator

The prosecution rests, your honor.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 23:41

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Gross Dude posted:

Yeah, but that already has alternate art.

I know, but dude I was quoting was talking about cards with bad art, and I decided to give the best general example because I mean holy poo poo.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 23:45

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

The Moon Monster posted:

On the other hand

*snip*

Something about cards with female orcs.

I get what you're saying, she's doing the classic stupid pose that dumb male artists think is sexy, and her face is a complete mess - but look at that sword what the poo poo.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 23:47

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Playing a draft right now!

http://www.twitch.tv/lightreaper

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 14:07

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Sigma-X posted:

Sealed is only Swiss and thus the max winnings are still a net loss. You turn 200 play into 40k gold.

Constructed competitive pays off the best, with 5 packs for 300 plat. Competitive draft pays off the next best, with 100 plat netting you +2 packs. Plus ou get to open cards.

I had a sealed tournament fire off and it was fun, but going 3-0 to come up 200 plat short is only a so-so experience.

On a related note, has anyone seen constructed tournaments successfully start? Every time I settle down to play the queue is at 0-1/8, I want to try out my brewed control deck

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 00:15

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Some mid afternoon drafting going down, currently playing a shin'hare deck:

http://www.twitch.tv/lightreaper

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 12:49

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Saturday afternoon streaming! Currently in round two with a dwarf deck after beating Totalizator in what could only be described as 'two grandmas hitting each other with handbags'

https://www.twitch.tv/lightreaper

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 14:28

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Drafting again, this time with an aggressive aggro deck

http://www.twitch.tv/lightreaper

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 22:00

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Slifter posted:

Don't dis Comet Strike, I've been doing pretty well with it in the 128 man tournaments.

Or do and sell me your for cheap, I'll pay goons 200 plat each.

Yeah... You can't say this without posting a deck list because that sounds nuts. Not that I don't believe you, I just want to see what devilry is required to make that card playable.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 09:29

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Karnegal posted:

Yeah, as soon as trading is in the game, we can start organizing internal tournaments. I think a bunch of us have stuff that we can put up for prizes either packs, promos, or whatever.

On this topic, I really wish you could play best of three's in the proving grounds - as without that, sideboarding on a trust system is a little awkward. Though it is still workable.

Zurai posted:

Yeah, I'm kinda regretting opening the ones I had before that one. I put it up on the AH, figuring I'd open it when it didn't sell, but then it did. I've only opened like 5 but that's still nearly $100 in platinum.

I'm a lucky fucker I guess, last primal I opened I cracked an angel of dawn, crown of the primals & a Xentoth Inquisitor. Which reminds me actually, do you think it's a good idea to sit on constructed staples for now until open beta? The price of Angel keeps going up but I'm a little iffy on whether the value will go up due to demand in open beta or crash because suddenly that many more packs are getting opened. I already have four so this is my fifth.

---

Seeming as though we've got a pretty good overall discussion going about Constructed play, what do you feel would make Shin'hare - or to be more general, token strategies more viable? Shin'hare and to a lesser extent Dwarves have both had trouble making an impact in any 128 man tournament that I've seen, and the reason is pretty evident in Extinction & Yesterday, but what could be done to help this in set two?

One of the card ideas I had been kicking around in my head over the past few days is a Wild constant that serves as a 'burrow', which fits with the tunnelling theme they've alluded to with the second set's announcement - and would serve as a defensive card to protect cards. Something like:

Shin'hare Burrow

2 wild threshold
4 mana cost

1 mana, exhaust this constant: Void target troop you control, at the beginning of your next upkeep return it to play.

This would let Shin'hare decks protect their key cards from board wipes, while also tying in another aspect of rabbits thematically to the race.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 09:20

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Karnegal posted:

Sigma and I were talking about these earlier and we both agree that

A.) They are cherry picked to present a wide-open meta, and many of them are bad decks.
B.) A fair few are sub-optimal versions of better decks

One of the shocking things that these decks illustrate is how truly bad the average Hex player is. Given the similarity to Magic, a fair bit of the theory either carries over or can be translated relatively easily, which might make you assume that deck building would start a step up, but people play some really bad cards and manage to go 4-0. What that indicates to me is that they're playing a lot of other crappy decks. For instance, Replicator's Gambit is a fun card - I'll probably try it out in PvE for that reason. However, it is not a good card, particularly in a format with 0 tutors. It's the wild west right now, and all this list is telling me is that a lot of people are packing cap guns.

While you are correct in this, it's important to note that this may be because of the free entry to the tournaments at the time. There is no doubt a significant percentage of the playerbase who is mainly interested in this game for the PvE, but while they wait are playing the PvP stuff casually. Get enough of those people into a tournament they lose out on nothing for entering, and you get enough chaff that theoretically any deck could go 4-0 with some competent piloting.

It is definitely interesting that they chose to highlight weak decks deliberately, or decks that are clearly thrown together with what the person had in their collection. I do wonder however how many of these deck 'concepts' we suddenly start seeing a lot more of because of people being impressionable and hextcg.com still being the most visible platform for the meta that's establishing itself (despite other sites best efforts). I mean gently caress it right who needs a mana curve or removal spells when we can play decks that feature such superstar cards as Ivory Pawn & Relentless Corruption?

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 09:08

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Gross Dude posted:

I'm not convinced relentless corruption is all that terrible in a control mirror. I have it in my sideboard just for that. I'd never main deck it, but I see nothing wrong with it on the side board.

Sure, there's an argument to be made that it could be brought in from the sideboard in a long grindy game where you know the card will be useful - but main decking it is just foolish and shows an ignorance of why the card exists. Yes it's technically card draw, but it's very slow and in a lot of cases likely to just draw you cards that have nothing to do with your game plan (woo I drew a volcannon or a blessing the fallen in my control deck). Not being a quick action also hurts it, as using all your mana on your turn 3 isn't a great idea - especially against aggro decks.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 11:42

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Vilgan posted:

For "preying on control decks", if you were going to build one deck to beat the standard BD list what would it be?

I'd consider the "standard" to be something like:
4x Angel of Dawn
4x Soul Marble
4x Living Totem
4x Murder
4x Extinction
10x mix of repel, inner conflict, exile something constant
3x Vampire King
3x Xentoth's Inquisitor

I feel like many decks can have a 50/50 shot at it, but there is no "oh good, the BD control deck I was expecting, I should win this easy" deck.

Sometimes they T2 angel and kill you very quickly
Sometimes they just remove whatever the hell you play and then eventually value you out
Even if you run spellshield guys, they can still extinction them.
Even if you play gore storm to kill them quickly, they can just cast 2839402342 removal spells so that you never have a creature to attack with. I should have SS my opponents GY from a match yesterday. T8 or so he had 3x repel 2x extinction, 3x murder in the yard.
Even with the comet strike deck, they could top deck totem or soul marble before you topdeck peek/one of your win cons. Then they can bring in 4x inquisition from the side.

Can I beat the deck? Sure, I probably run 50% against it. But a deck that should utterly rape the BD control deck? I'm not sure what that would look like.

I'm quoting this because it's relevant for the HexTCGPro series that's due this weekend, so let's have a go at the theoretical BD killer, going off of a good suggestion by Tamba:

Tamba posted:

Maybe something with Wild/Sapphire?
Turbulence kills angels, vampires and flying totems, Wind of Change or Nature Reigns destroys Soul Marble and Solitary Exile, and Spellshielded creatures don't care about anything but Extinction, which you can counterspell.

Assuming no sideboard, we have to main deck our outs against the deck, here's a basic shell I have, with the knowledge that we want to beat that deck specifically, in no particular order:

Cerulean Mirror Knights - in the colours this is one of our best ways to offset a resolved Extinction, so it seems like an automatic include.
Boulder Brutes - Probably the best straight up beat down creature we can play that we can give Hexproof
Countermagic - No explanation needed given we need to disrupt them
Buccaneer - The swiss army knife of the deck, and useful in just about any matchup
Splinter of Azathoth - In my opinion one of the sleepers of the set. Triple sapphire threshold is a problem so playing this may require one or more copies of adaptable infusion devices.
Oracle Song - Seems a sensible inclusion
Time Ripple - Get those Angel of Dawns out of there, can allow us to recycle creatures in response to an extinction
Nature Reigns - Solitary Exile & Soul Marble hate
Turbulence - Vampire King & Angel of Dawn hate

Possible inclusions:
Eldritch Dreamer - Another hexproof threat, this time unblockable but not as good defensively
Manti Elder Druid - A definite consideration as this can be used defensively and offensively, and allows us to re-use our Splinter oneshots
Monkey of the Nine Tails - A possible alternative to the Elder druid, with the benefit of potentially transforming our early game buccaneers or howling braves into a bigger threat
Crash of Beasts - Perhaps the answer is to go wide? This card at the very least allows us to get more than one relevant creature per card eventually, maybe the 2+ for 1 we need?

Putting these ideas together into a 60 card concept could look something like:

Champion: Wyatt the Sapper???

4 x Cerulean Mirror Knights
3 x Boulder Brutes w/ Hexproof Gem
2 x Adaptable Infusion Device
2 x Oracle Song
4 x Countermagic
4 x Buccaneer
3 x Time Ripple
2 x Survival of the Fittest
4 x Crash of Beasts
2 x Nature Reigns
2 x Turbulence
2 x Manti Elder Druid
2 x Splinter of Azathoth
4 x Shards of Fate
11 x Wild Shards
9 x Sapphire Shards

Link to deck stats etc

This is of course ignoring the decks potential against other deck matchups, but we can always walk backwards from this shell until a happy middle ground is met. This may have issues getting past bigger creatures, in which case the Eldritch Dreamer may be the better choice here.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 16:01

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

dongsbot 9000 posted:

vulture/citizenry is a legit combo tho

There are better combos than that, I would rather play a corpse fly than a vulture, or most creatures + noble citizenry over vulture. Vulture may be high power but without the noble citizen it falls over to everything in the air.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 20:25

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Some Numbers posted:

Infiltrator Bot costs 5.

You'd rather play one of the best blood commons than a Vulture? I'm shocked, sir, SHOCKED.

Seriously guys, Vulture's not that bad. It's not a high pick, but it's got 4 power and it flies. It's fine. I've never been embarrassed to play it.

I followed up my comment by saying I would play most cards over vulture. The sad truth is 1 toughness creatures need to be potent for me to play them, as things like bombsmith, sniper of gawaine, elimination specialist, and Zared Venomscorn (the most popular champion) are easy answers to what would normally at 5 toughness be your late game bomb. That's not even getting into the random 1 power fliers almost every color puts out there.

I didn't dismiss the idea of playing him without merit, I did try using the vulture a bunch because yes it is an evasive threat but as mentioned above, there are too many better, cheaper cards that answer it easily. Maybe it's a playstyle preference, but with the way set 1 has panned out & the way A LOT of people draft (as many fliers as possible) it's too much of a liability to be in my eyes playable at the top of the curve. If you guys make it work, all power to you but I'd rather not play it at all and get another 2-4 mana creature as it has always underperformed for me. I don't think big dumb high power creatures is even the strategy blood even wants to be in, as Hieronymous Alloy alluded to - blood aura let's us get so much value from the many more reliable evasive threats blood has access to.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 21:14

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

dongsbot 9000 posted:

what are all "the random 1 power fliers almost every color puts out there"

sapphire has a couple of them that are mostly unplayable (1/3, 1/1, 1/1 mill) and one actually playable one that isn't really a 1 power flier. if you are playing sapphire, i would agree that zombie vulture is rather bad. but it's playable in most other situations.

Sorry, that was poor communication on my part, I meant at least 1 power fliers to block with (which now that I think about it, is just those seagulls & loregoyle).

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 21:31

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Scheme's not that great a card unless you're running enough card draw to make up for the fact that you're basically spending 2 resource to do nothing until you draw the next card.

That said yeah it makes escalation decks much more threatening.

Did someone say Escalation?

Wyatt the Sapper

Troops
3x Mentor of the Song
1x Archmage Wrenlocke

Spells
4x Burn
2x Burn to the Ground
4x Heat Wave
4x Ragefire
3x Time Ripple
4x Countermagic
3x Heart of fire
2x Mesmerize
4x Oracle Song
2x Scheme

Then 24 shards IDK, the point is a counter-burn deck might actually be fun to try, just need a better draw spell to replace the 3 oracle's songs. Depending on the matchup you can pop the scheme to bolster whatever card you might need - Counterspell versus control, Burn to the Ground/Ragefire late game, Heart of fire if you want to live the dream.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 11:05

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:01

LightReaper: May 3, 2007

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

This is the deck I've been playing around with lately: http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/#!/deck=7702

It's pretty dang effective once it gets rolling but it's finicky to get started. I'd probably just take three of the four-count blue cards and drop a Scheme in to replace them. It's easy to point to Ragefire, but think about Scheming Mastery of Time? With Wrenlocke in play?

Has the Kindling Skarn done good work for you? It seems really slow and prone to removal to warrant a slot, though I had originally thought to give it a go. If I did run it I probably wouldn't run it with any cards above 4 mana cost (so no Mastery of Time) because of the nature of the level up mechanic.

I didn't include MoT because I don't have any copies, and Ragefire seems more stable in the early game and with the rest of the deck gives us so much burn/removal to work with. I am certainly interested in your build, have you taken it to any 128 mans?

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 13:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Hex: Shards of Fate - Is Pro tier still sold out?

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