Herofall PTR Card Changes

Now that PTR has come and gone, we’d like to thank everyone that participated in helping us prepare for Herofall launch. In that time we’ve been scouring the forums, watching streams, and pulling data from the PTR to give us a big-picture view of Herofall’s impact. We test thousands of games internally, but when thousands of you play for two days straight we get incredibly valuable data that is difficult to generate in-house. We are committed to making the best possible HEX experience, so we are taking the information we gained from the PTR and are making a few adjustments to Herofall before release.

Below you will find the changes we have made for the release of Herofall.



Charge power increased from cost 3 to 4



This champion saw a lot more play in the PTR than expected. During play testing, we had concerns with this champion’s charge power being frustrating to play against so we were already watching Josephina. We felt she was acceptable in smaller doses but became problematic when she started impacting the board too frequently. As a result, we increased her charge power to make it less likely that she will be activated 2-3 times per game. Furthermore, moving her to four charges, we also reduce the likelihood that a single troop will be locked out of combat for two consecutive turns.



Cost decreased from 6 to 5. ATK and DEF moved from 6/6 to 5/5



Diamond is a shard that in the previous sets has struggled to be competitive as anything other than a support shard. We believe many of the new cards in Herofall have helped to make aggressive Diamond decks viable, however we also wanted to ensure that control based Diamond decks were receiving the tools they would need to be successful. We decreased the cost of Eldrathan’s Glory because turn 6 can sometimes be a turn too late for him to impact the game against the smaller troops he is designed to counteract. If players are not interested in Eldrathan’s Glory because he can’t be played on time, then his purpose is not being fulfilled. We gave him a small nudge to make him more attractive to players.



Cost decreased from 5 to 3. ATK and DEF moved from 4/3 to 3/2



There are many troops in constructed play that exist less as another body in combat and more to provide utility to a deck. Nefarious Corruptor is designed as a tool to punish decks that rely on these utility troops, but the payoff at 5 cost wasn’t enough to make him attractive for that purpose. By letting him see play earlier, we make two damage a turn more terrifying to anyone who wants to sit back and hide behind a Phenteo.



Added combat damage instead of any damage to trigger his ability



This is a pretty small change for Standard constructed but an important move for our Immortal format. The design was meant to have a player figure out the puzzle of how to get this guy to attack and not be blocked. With the Major Ruby of Destruction, there is no puzzle and this card is too powerful.



DEF changed from 11 to 8. Cost of revealing from hand is increased from 1 to 2 and now gives the troop that is targeted +1/+1



Gargalith was seeing a lot of play, protecting troops early and then coming down late game as an unkillable monster. While this, on its own, is not necessarily bad, the opportunity cost was a bit too low. With these changes we feel that he is good, but now requires some planning to use his protection ability from hand. It is also slightly easier to block and kill him once he is on the board.



This cycle of cards had changes to their activation powers. They now all cost 2 to activate from hand, but grant +1/+1 in addition to their keyword for the turn and can now only target troops you control



Part of this came from changes we wanted to make on the Gargalith, but the main incentive was that we wanted their [ONE SHOT] abilities to feel more impactful. We changed the targeting to “you control” to prevent the issue we came across in client of them glowing and looking like they can use their ability when only opposing troops are in play. There are few reasons for them to target opposing troops design wise, so we felt this was an easy change to make for a cleaner in-game experience.



Cost increased from 4 to 5



Dreamweaver received a buff right before we began spoilers for Herofall, mainly because he was so fun to play with and he fulfills the fantasy of Wild magic’s explosive growth. Data from the PTR led us to believe that his opportunity cost was perhaps a bit too low. Being able to play him on turn 3 with the help of a Howling Brave was too early in the game and could feel very overwhelming to an opponent on two resources. We want to balance fun for players on both sides of the board and didn’t want to lose his impact as a troop. For these reasons, we increased Dreamweaver’s cost to 5.



DEF decreased from 4 to 3



Small change, we wanted to make this guy slightly easier to kill.



Now double Ruby threshold. Text changed from “if this is in your hand, discard this” to “if this is in your hand, revert this and put it into a random opposing champion’s hand.”



We felt like the Riposte from the PTR ended up feeling too much like a Sapphire counter. We wanted to give Ruby access to an interrupt effect, but in a way that preserved shard identity. We were seeing Riposte being splashed into decks as well which only exacerbated the issue. Accordingly, we increased the thresholds to ensure that players who play Riposte are committing to Ruby and not just splashing. We also changed what happens to the taken card if it is not played to make this a more interesting experience for both players. Now instead of a simple Sapphire interrupt for any action, if you are not willing to spend your turn playing the card, your opponent will regain control of their card, which is much more in line with Ruby’s identity.



ATK/DEF moved from 2/2 to 3/4



There are two parts to this change. First, we want to encourage players to experiment with Diamond Valor decks in constructed. Second, we didn’t want Diamond players to play this and have it voided thanks to the new Eldrathan’s Glory.



Game text changed from “actions and constants” to “artifacts and constants”



This card was always intended to be powerful. Unfortunately, one of the things it happened to be very good against was Valors. Not only is Reveler an Elf (elves as part of the Ardent Alliance should work with Valors not hate upon them), but when we create a new set and mechanics we want those to show up in constructed and shake up the meta. We did not want this guy to prevent Valors from ever really getting to see the light of day in constructed. With the updated design, we feel as though he is now in the correct place thematically (elves hating on artifacts/dwarves) and in terms of his effect on gameplay.

That does it for changes to Herofall before we release! Thank you to everyone who participated in the PTR, and an extra special thanks for those who took the time to come to the forums to give us your feedback. As always, once PvP cards are in your hands we won’t be changing them. Pre-release changes like these go a long way towards helping HEX continue being a great game with a healthy meta.

Don’t forget to Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitch.

Discuss this article in our forums!