HEX Update – Do You Copy?

Hi HEXers! It’s VIP weekend and the format is Constructed. Good luck in your battles! This week, R&D covers the difference between copies and replicas with some great examples for those who want to be prepared for popular cards like Periwinkle. Plus, we have a free Constructed stress test tournament on September 5th.

Copies and Replicas

My name is Corey Burkhart, and I’m the rules and templating manager inside of R&D. Any time the designers and developers want to make a card, equipment, gem, game rule, or anything that would affect gameplay, at some point I have my eyes on the how these things are going to affect HEX as a whole. I work with the R&D team to make sure there aren’t potential loopholes with the new thing they’re creating and then coordinate with the other teams to make the new item as great as it can possibly be.

Armies of Myth gave the players a ton of new cards, equipment and other features. From Banes to Prophecy, to Shift, I helped the designers and developers get these from start to finish. Today, I want to talk about copies as they’re another one of the big ticket concepts in Armies of Myth.

Copies aren’t a completely new thing. If you’ve really immersed yourself in the world of Entranth, you may have come across another card that copies cards, Chimes of the Zodiac. Chimes of the Zodiac was somewhat of the oddball out in Shards of Fate, as every other card in it and Shattered Destiny were making replicas. While mostly the same, replicas and copies have a fairly granular rule set as they’re both trying to do the idea of creating another entity from a first body of work, but they’re executed in a slightly different way for flavor reasons.

Replicas

Replicas are the dwarf version of refined assembly, perfectly combining the pieces of their bots together to make another pristine product. As the mechanized race of HEX, they mass produce their deadly machines with which to eliminate their Ardent foes. The Dwarves follow the same design plan time in and time out. There’s no unique facets to items built en masse; the designs remain the same. The first time the dwarves build a Hornet Bot from Construction Plans Hornet Bot will be the same the first day as it will be forevermore. Thus, the Dwarves really needed something that captured the essence of what it is to have an industrialized process of producing these machines, and that’s where replicas came in.

Replicas gave the design team a great use of flavor, telling the back story of the Dwarves, while also giving them a defined rules set that is different than that of anything else in HEX. Cards can be created as replicas or in some cases be transformed into replicas. Here’s what happens when you make a replica of something:

Replicas have no threshold (and therefore are shardless)

Replicas are artifacts in addition to their other card types

If the replica is a troop, it gains the troop types Robot and Replica

If the original card was Unique, the replica is not.

If the original card has a gem in it, the gem is also socketed into the replica.

The replica does not copy any modifiers on the card (this includes transformation history).

Most of these rules are fairly straightforward, but I want to give an example to help explain the last two rules which are easily the most complicated of the bunch. You’re playing a game of HEX, and you have a Nori socketed with the Minor Wild Orb of Conservation (Spellshield). Princess Cory uses Cosmic Transmogrifier to transform your Nori into a Shadowblade Lurker. On your turn, you use Mimic to make a replica of the Shadowblade Lurker. What you get is a Robot Replica Shadowblade Lurker that never remembers being a Nori. This Robot has no recollection of what it was modeled after. Therefore, if reverted, the replica Shadowblade Lurker will not become a Nori because of point six on the replica rules, but will instead remain a Shadowblade Lurker

(Editor’s note- The above paragraph was published informing players that cards would create replicas of the base form of a card, not its current state. That is incorrect. The above paragraph now accurately reflects how replicas and transformed cards interact.)

Copies

R&D always knew that it was going to make copies, but they knew for Dwarves they really wanted something more flavorful for the first chapter where Dwarves were a featured race. Copies are used by many more of the races of HEX. Some races lack access to making copies at the moment, but nothing is preventing your favorite HEX race from being able to make clones of themselves in the future.

Copies were a fairly tricky endeavor for us to create. We knew we wanted copies to be different than replicas, but finding that little twist that made copies enough different from replicas, exciting, while also not completely confusing was quite difficult. We toyed with many different ideas like having all modifiers affecting the target of the copy being put into the copy, but then you had to know exactly what the durations of all the modifiers on your troops. We played with the idea that copies weren’t Unique, but it ran into some pretty odd storyline history when Unique characters were meeting older versions of themselves in the space time continuum. We think our final design of copies is a great deal more intuitive, different than replicas, and will greatly serve the roles of HEX for a long time to come.

Here’s how copies work in HEX:

Copies are always created or transformed into the copied target (current state) Copies get all modifiers that the copied card had, except all of these modifiers are kept with a permanent duration. Copied cards have the same cost, thresholds, ATK, DEF, and powers of the original card. ONE-SHOT powers are not restored to the copy if the original card has used its ONE-SHOT powers. Like replicas, troops copied are socketed with the same gems as the original. If the copy has any targets, you may choose new targets for the copy. If the original was Unique, the copy is as Unique to the same uniqueness violation(s) as well. Troops that are copied are independent from their source once they’re created or transformed.

These rules are slightly more complicated than replicas, and it’s the new toy we’re playing with in Armies of Myth, so I’m going to give a few examples from the set to explain all of these rules. Many of these rules have a bit more depth to them than just how they read on the surface.

Example 1

Your resources are 6/6 (6 resource points and 6 permanent resources) and you have a Heart of the Wrathwood in play, who’s a 6 ATK / 6 DEF troop from his power. You use your Wolsy Wabbit to transform into a copy of the Heart of the Wrathwood. What does the Wolsy Wabbit look like?

From rule 2, we see the Heart of the Wrathwood has +6 ATK / +6 DEF so the Wolsy Wabbit is going to get +6 ATK / +6 DEF permanently. The copies base stats will be a 6 cost 0 ATK / 0 DEF troop just like the Heart of the Wrathwood’s base stats from rule #3. Then, from rule #8, if we happen to play something like Predatory Prey on our original Heart of the Wrathwood we know it will no longer give our new Heart of the Wrathwood copy +2 ATK / +2 DEF.

What we end up with is a 12 ATK / 12 DEF Heart of the Wrathwood copy thanks to our fuzzy little Wabbit!

Example 2

Your Syyn, Etherdrake Nomad attacks and voids you prophesied Lanupaw, Prophet of Fate with +5 ATK / +5 DEF. The copy of that Lanupaw, Prophet of Fate is added to your hand, but you already have a Lanupaw in play. You play the copied Lanupaw, Prophet of Fate hoping to make the next few cards in your deck stronger thanks to his ability to predict the future. However, because of rule #7, the copy is also Unique to the original. The two Lanupaw’s could never have foretold this day! The eldest copy of Lanupaw is sent to the graveyard as a part of Uniqueness violation, and your new copied Lanupaw looks to give you a better sense of what the future holds, with no doppelgangers looking to ruin what will unfold.

Example 3

Going back to our best Plant friend, Heart of the Wrathwood, this time Periwinkle joins your troops. With Periwinkle in play and 10 permanent resources, you play Heart of the Wrathwood that has been prophesied by Storm Drummer. Periwinkle creates a copy of the Heart of the Wrathwood on the chain, and the copy gets a ton of extra stuff.

The Heart of the Wrathwood’s base stats are 0 ATK / 0 DEF for a 6 cost troop of triple Wild thresholds, these are all copied over. The Heart of the Wrathwood however has +10 ATK / +10 DEF from its first power, which is also given to the copy. Thus, the copy has +10 ATK / +10 DEF thanks to copies rule #2 permanently, and its own first power gives it +10 ATK / +10 DEF, yielding a 20 ATK / 20 DEF overgrown Plant!

Also, from rule #2, the copy of Heart of the Wrathwood has “When this enters play, you may have this battle target opposing troop” thanks to Storm Drummer. When all the dust settles, you’ve gotten a 20 ATK / 20 DEF Heart of the Wrathwood, and 10 ATK / 10 DEF Heart of the Wrathwood, a Periwinkle and two opposing troops about to be devoured by the battling potential of your massive Plants!

Currently, Periwinkle is bugged and is not following rule #2 for copies. This is currently being addressed by one of our games rules engineers, but she should function like she does in the written example above once her problem is solved.

Now that you know some more about copies, their rules, and interactions, I highly recommend you give them a try. Copies lead to some truly awesome decks and experiences in HEX. We’re just now exploring a few of them with Armies of Myth, as there’ll be many more to come.

~Corey Burkhart

Free Stress Test Tournament Saturday, September 5th

In eight days, we’re hosting a free Constructed (all sets) tournament in order to test tournaments with no player participation cap. We need as many players as possible in order to really stress test that system and find bugs in the system, so please come help. The stress test is taking place on the live server NOT the test server. The tournament starts promptly at 11 AM Pacific, so you should log in early to secure your entry into the event.

Prizes:

1st 150 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

2nd 100 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

3rd – 4th 70 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

5th – 8th 50 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

9th – 16th 30 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

17th – 32nd 20 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

33rd – 64th 15 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

65th- 96th 10 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

97th- 128th 5 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

129th – 256th 2 booster packs of Armies of Myth.

The format will be Constructed Swiss then a cut to top 8 which will be constructed single elimination. If the tournament does not start or we feel that the tournament cannot come to a proper conclusion, we will provide alternative compensation. Good luck!

VIP Weekend

August VIP weekend is August 28th through the 30th. Since last month’s event was flipped to Sealed Deck, this month’s will be Constructed. This is the last month to earn Carnasaurus AA and Valiant Escort AA, so make sure to get yours!

If you are not yet a HEX VIP and don’t want to miss out on these tournaments, you should definitely become one. With your purchase, you get a pack per week of the current set plus tickets to allow entry into these events (tournament entry fees still apply). Players who sign up for the full year also get the exclusive Cerulean Mirror Knight Alternate Art sleeve! See the VIP FAQ for more information.

Start times listed in CEST below:

Friday: 19:00

Saturday: 04:00, 12:00, 20:00

Sunday: 03:00, 18:00

Start times listed in PDT below:

Friday: 10:00 AM, 7:00 PM

Saturday: 3:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 6:00 PM

Sunday: 9:00 AM

Start times listed in EDT below:

Friday: 1:00 PM, 10:00 PM

Saturday: 6:00 AM, 2:00 PM, 9:00 PM

Sunday: 12:00 PM

Tournament Information

Players: 16 minimum – 256 maximum

Format: 4 rounds of Swiss

Entry fee: VIP ticket + 500 plat

Prizes:

4 wins: 10 packs / 2 Carnasaurus AA / 2 Valiant Escort AA

3 wins: 6 packs / 1 Carnasaurus AA / 1 Valiant Escort AA

2 wins: 3 packs / 1 Carnasaurus AA / 1 Valiant Escort AA

1 win: 2 packs

0 wins: 1 pack

That’s all for this week. Please leave any questions or comments in the forums, and don’t forget to Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitch, and register on our forums.

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