Watch/Ban List Updates 4/27/17

Hey all, Corey Burkhart here, with an update to our Watch and Ban Lists. Today we’ll focus mostly on our Immortal Constructed format, as there are no other changes to our other formats!

We’ve been watching the progress of the HEX Primal Immortal Series as well as the HEX Primal Immortal queue over the past month and a half. We’ve decided that we want to take a first step at showing players that the Watch List is not just a stepping stone to the Ban List. As we stated when we first announced our Lists, cards can move both ways. Today’s announcement is about both promoting the Immortal format and making sure players feel secure in their ability to invest in certain cards. We don’t want people to avoid buying cards for a deck because it’s on the Watch List. The Watch List is not meant to be a scary place a card goes and is then removed from the Immortal format for a period of time. The purpose of the Watch List is to let players know in advance that we believe these cards could possibly do unhealthy things to the metagame and the experiences that player’s get to have. Only in the event one of these items is broken—simply too good or leading to too many unpleasant experiences—will we step in and take action.

Today, there’s nothing being added to the Ban List or the Watch List. We saw many decks that we expected and some cool new brews, but nothing that really feels like it’s unduly impacting player enjoyment or anything that’s over the line in terms of power. Rather, we’re actually removing two items from the Watch List in order to encourage deckbuilding and promote diversity in the metagame. Those items are:

Champion –

And Card –



Cressida was originally placed on the Watch List because of her exceptionally powerful ability to generate a resource point which allows her to make explosive plays early on in a game. However, something that keeps her in check is that her health total is quite low, and that leaves her weak to the powerful aggressive cards and strategies that have existed in HEX’s history. She has proven herself explosive against disruptive strategies and control decks without oppressing other aggressive strategies. We believe that’s a perfectly healthy spot for Cressida to exist in the metagame at this time.

Azurefate Sorceress was placed on the Watch List because of the danger of quick speed, uninteractable plays. The fear was that she would be combined with the Minor Sapphire of Mischief and other gems existing now or in the future to Inspire plays that opponents would have not opportunity to answer. However, with Azurefate’s 2[ATK]/2[DEF] body, it’s tough for that to be a reality. After crunching the numbers, we realized our fears were mostly unfounded. Azurefate Sorceress is quite fragile, and while she is capable of explosive plays, her small body makes her easy to disrupt. As far as four cost troops go, she’s powerful, but not the most dangerous card we have our eyes on. In fact, most of the trouble she could get into would be caused by the Minor Sapphire of Mischief, which is already being watched. Specifically by taking her off of the Watch List, we hope to encourage more players to build and play decks with Azurefate Sorceress, as she’s an exceptionally exciting digital card that really encompasses the depth HEX has to offer.

To close, the current Ban and Watch lists for HEX now look like the following:

Watch and Ban List

Effective 4/27/17

Standard

Legal: Scars of War

Herofall

Primal Dawn

Armies of Myth Banned: Titania’s Majesty How Rotation Works

Immortal

Campaign and Frost Ring Arena

Again, we’ll re-evaluate this list after the next HEX Primal Immortal Championship on June 17th, 2017 at 9AM Pacific. We’ll be watching, analyzing, and playing games ourselves until then. The next update to the Watch/Ban lists will occur on June 29th. Until then, happy battling!

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