Digital trading card games are becoming increasingly popular and common these days. The big two are obviously Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, and Blizzard's seminal Hearthstone. However, there are also a number of smaller ones that definitely shouldn't be overlooked, like the excellent Might and Magic: Duel of Champions, Pokémon DCG, and SolForge.

The one that I'm watching very closely, however, is Hex: Shards of Fate. Following a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign over the summer of last year, Hex has slowly, but surely been building momentum. I'm currently playing the latest round of Beta, and I'm hooked. It's far more sophisticated than Hearthstone, and even gives Magic the Gathering a run for its money in terms of gameplay depth.

The game is the brainchild of Cryptozoic, the team that also produces the physical World of Warcraft TCG. They've put their experience to bear to create what seems like a quite traditional digital card game in terms of its basic mechanics, but one that actually goes far farther than any other DCG before it.

The game ostensibly follows the genre staple of two champions dueling one another with preconstructed decks of cards, each summoning creatures and casting spells to destroy their opponent. Players can make decks using five different schools of magic, plus color-agnostic artifacts, and must then add appropriately-colored shards that provide the power to play said cards. It's pretty straightforward stuff, and anyone who's played other digital or physical games of this ilk will feel very much at home, very quickly. So far, I've managed to make a four-colored deck that just about works, but at this early stage of the game's development, there aren't that many cards that enable players to construct tournament-effective four-color decks, and even three-color ones can be dicey. So as of now, dual and single-color decks are the most reliable and efficient – as they generally tend to be in other games like this.

So far, so straightforward. However, where Hex deviates from most other DCGs is that it enables you to choose a hero that you can subsequently level up and customize to suit your playstyle. There are six classes and eight races to choose from, and the higher the character's level, the more interesting and powerful the spells that hero brings to the table, thus helping augment basic deck strategy with additional tricks and firepower. To that end, the game includes special class specific cards, equipment and charge powers.

Here's a sneak peek at a brand new legendary card from Hex' next expansion pack, Shattered Destiny. Prince Talysen could be the lynchpin of a pretty powerful deck.

Leveling is done via classic MMO questing. In an interesting twist to the DCG genre, the developers of Hex are planning a comprehensive single-player mode where you take your decks into battle against AI enemies – in similar fashion to what Hearthstone does with Naxxramas, and Duels of the Planeswalkers does with its story mode. However, rather than simply presenting a series of duels, the quest mode is planned to be more sweeping and comprehensive, and also takes in dungeons and raids. The former are single player, whereas Raids are for up to three players. Both use a unique interface to help convey the action, which will apparently take a slightly different approach to the regular 1:1 gameplay.

Another interesting aspect of Hex is factions. These are game-themed groups that the player can build reputation with by questing and completing certain dungeons. As you do, new card mechanisms are unlocked, along with recipes for new faction-specific cards, and equipment.

Equipment? That's another new feature that essentially enables players to customize their cards with additional effects. Some cards also have sockets which you can load specific spells or effects into to further enhance the card and perhaps augment your deck's overall strategy (for example, adding the ability for a creature to attack the turn it's summoned). This level of customization takes deckbuilding up a notch, essentially enabling the player to fine tune his or her deck to a very macro degree.

Along with equipment, each card has a double back – a regular back like a normal card set, and then a "second" back that lists three achievements specific to that card (such as destroying a certain creature, or doing something a certain number of times). If you can hit all three objectives, you unlock new art for the front, and then further transform the card into a foil variant, and add to it a trophy case that you can fill by using the card in a tournament-winning deck.

But wait! There's still more. There are also transforming cards that have effects that happens mid-match, such as an egg card hatching into a dragon, or a hero that can level up several times during a game. While these mechanics are not dissimilar to other physical card games whose effects are indicated by tokens, the fact that these are digital cards means there's a full transformation of the card in play.

Additionally, some cards can affect other cards that aren't necessarily in play. Such as randomly drawing cards from your opponent's deck, modifying any creatures drawn by negatively changing their stats, and then shuffling them back into the deck again – something almost impossible to do with physical cards. Again, this adds another twist to the gameplay to help maintain Hex' originality and creativity.

All this adds up to a DCG that is using its digital nature to help add depth and new aspects to card battling. So far, Hex is very impressive. With a significant initial round of cards that enables a wide variety of creative and fun-to-play decks, Hex is certainly strong out of the gate – and there's a second large expansion of cards coming very soon to further enhance the overall metagame.

I've had a huge amount of fun putting decks together, and the more sophisticated nature of Hex' gameplay has also kept me away from Hearthstone, which I was previously addicted to. Blizzard's DCG is still brilliant fun to play, but Hex' broader range of cards, the ability to play certain cards during an opponent's turn, and the multicolored deckbuilding aspect means it just has much more richness, depth, and complexity.

So far, I have yet seen how the dungeons play – this is Beta, so it's all work in progress at the moment – and the AI aspect of the game also still in its early phases. It's fun to play against the computer for sure, but it does make mistakes which sometimes cost it the game. Once the AI is fully baked, however, I think it'll be a pretty strong opponent. Even despite it making silly errors, the AI opponent can still get it right, and when it does, it's hard to beat.

The most solid aspect of the game in its current Beta guise is its 1:1 and tournament play. This is typical round robin and Swiss-style tournament gaming with either preconstructed or sealed decks, or drafting from opened packs of cards. With human opponents providing a challenge, the game is seen in its best light: deeply strategic, subtle and sometimes devastating.

Hex is free to play, and enables players to win cards through questing and winning basic AI challenges. However, to build competitive decks, you need to buy packs of cards. This is pretty much par for the course for most games of this type, but I thought it important to mention, since some players do run screaming from this kind of business model. I really don't mind it; as a veteran Magic the Gathering player, I've been buying packs of cards since 1994 - and to me, there's little difference between "real" cards and digital ones these days.

Although it's only available on PC and Mac at the moment, one of the successful stretch goals of Hex' Kickstarter is tablet support – and that's something I'm really looking forward to. I think it'll make the perfect tablet game – especially if the single-player side of the game comes together as planned. If it does, and the AI achieves the potential it looks like it has, Hex could well be one of the best DCG's yet seen.