Style Points – Revere

Hello everyone! Dino here.

Welcome to the latest installment of “Style Points,” an article for the creative deck builder. Here we take a minute to teach you some tricks about cards you might not have used yet. These tricks are not always the most powerful, but they may just make your schoolhouse rock. Last time we talked about chilling and grilling while on Holiday. Today I’d like to learn us some lessons with an Infernal Professor.

So without further ado, let’s look at your collection differently.

I know many of you are probably looking forward to the end of the semester and your holiday break, but I believe that learning is for life…. specifically, for ending your opponent’s life. After all, knowledge is power. So if you aren’t familiar with this sulphuric schoolteacher, let’s get up to speed:

For two resources you can grab a random, non-resource card from your deck. And best of all that card is given -2 cost, thereby ensuring that the professor doesn’t mess with your curve. If you could have played the tutored card from your hand, you can play it after the professor’s lesson. Essentially, including 4 Infernal Professors in your deck means your effective deck size is only 56 cards. And as we all know, the smaller the deck, the better your odds are at drawing into your threats.

But this education isn’t completely free. For every turn you keep that card in your hand and do not play it, it will deal 2 damage to your face. Talk about corporal punishment.

This means that the professor is seemingly unsuited to the long game. You don’t want to run him in a typical blood control deck, as every Extinction or Rot Cast you might hit is a liability. Unless you have massive health reserves, holding these cards until just the right moment can be a death sentence.

But what if the real take-away is learning to like the pain? What if there were a way to hold a tutored card in your hand for as long as you wanted?

HEX’s digital nature allows for interactions that couldn’t be imagined in a physical space. Zones like the “hand,” “crypt,” “deck,” and “in play” are less static than they would be on a kitchen table, and thus cards are able to express their attributes wherever they may be. This means that if a card has -1/-1, it has that modifier in *all* zones. Similarly, if a card has lifedrain it also has it everywhere. Do you see where I am going with this, class?

Infernal Professor explicitly states that the tutored card gets “At the start of your turn, if this is in your hand, it deals 2 damage to you.” It is not Infernal Professor that is dealing the damage – instead it modifies the card in question. And since lifedrain is active across all zones, this means that we can literally stack the deck in our favor. If Infernal Professor hits a troop with lifedrain, you will still take 2 to the face. But that troop will then give that health right back to you for a net health loss of 0.

Let’s break out the projector and see it in action: (Skip forward to 24m28s!)

Keep 3.10 – Getting Schooled

Champion: Gozzog

Troops:

4 Corrupt Harvester

3 Fury of the Mountain God (Major Blood Orb of Brutality and Minor Diamond of Life)

1 Ozawa, Cosmic Elder

4 Paladin of the Necropolis

4 Spearcliff Cloud Knight

4 Vampire Princess

4 Vampire King

Actions/Constants:

2 Extinction

4 Infernal Professor

4 Incantation of Righteousness

3 Soul Marble

Shards:

12 Blood Shard

9 Diamond Shard

4 Shard of Retribution

As you can see above, by carefully tuning our deck we can change Infernal Professor from a liability into a strategic asset. With only two exceptions, every constant or action in the deck is cheap enough to play immediately after being drawn with the professor. Furthermore, the deck is stuffed full of cards that benefit from constant heath gain. It is often prudent to wait with a tutored Spearcliff Cloud Knight or Vampire Princess in hand while a Paladin of the Necropolis ticks down your opponent’s health total. In fact, there are eleven cards in this deck that are improved by the professor’s “downside” as it pings you every turn.

Fury of the Mountain God, in particular, is amusing as a little bit of luck can turn into an really nasty learning experience for your opponent. A turn 2 Infernal Professor that nabs a Fury will ensure that you can play it on turn 4 at the latest. Now that’s a lesson plan I can get behind.

If you are still building your collection and looking for alternative builds, remember that the combo works on anything with lifedrain or anything that you can give lifedrain. That means you can mix and match with a Gemsoul Feeder or a Shamed Gladiator or two. And if you are looking to try your hand out at PvE, you can’t do much better than a Death Cap with the Hood of Leeching or a Leeching Burrower if you happen to have some lying around. Just be wary of adding too many actions or constants into your deck. If you must add something, make sure it is a card you don’t mind playing immediately. Also, try to keep your non-troop cards cheap so they don’t get stuck in your hand later down the road.

This is really just HEX101, but hopefully Infernal Professor has inspired you delve deeper into the subject. How do you school your opponents? Are there some lessons we missed? Make sure you share your notes with us here in the forums!

Dream big, everybody!

Dino out~

Dino is a regular HEX streamer and the creator of the 4Keeps competition. If you enjoy building wacky decks, playing for sweet prizes, and watching hexcellent shenanigans, you can check him out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on twitch.

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