I had an idea for a deck a few weeks ago and I’ve decided to tweak it a bit and post it here. Odds are it will be completely terrible, but that’s half the fun!

Some disclaimers. I have very little Magic experience, and the TCGs I have played have all been very different from Magic/Hex. Basically, I’m not claiming to be some expert here. Also, I’m well aware that the deck is probably awful, it’s much more a concept deck than anything meant to be hyper competitive. Finally, yes, I am aware of the issues with Cerebral Fulmination. Odds are I’d probably replace them with some other way of increasing card draw after a few games with this.

So, the basic idea behind the deck is that you flood the battlefield with very low cost, but very high quality troops, and then use those and direct damage spells to beat your opponent down. Here’s the deck list!

– 4 x The Ancestor’s Chosen

– 4 x Pack Raptor

– 3 x Petulant Wyldebeest

– 4 x Cerebral Fulmination

– 4 x Ragefire

– 4 x Burn

– 2 x Countermagic

– 3 x Dream Dance

– 3 x Sabotage

– 2 x Replicator’s Gambit

– 2 x Shrine of Prosperity

– 2 x Chaos Key

– 4 x Shards of Fate

– 5 x Wild Shard

– 7 x Sapphire Shard

– 7 x Ruby Shard

60 Cards (Full Deck List)

So, the basic idea behind the deck is that you get as many Pack Raptors and the Ancestral Specters created by The Ancestor’s Chosen into play as possible, aided by the fact that Cerebral Fulmination gives you extra card draws. Since all the troops in the deck are 1 cost, the goal is to get as many of them out at once as possible and just overwhelm the enemy. Lets take a look at the specific cards and why they are in the deck.

The Ancestor’s Chosen/Pack Raptor

These 2 troops should be pretty obvious, since they form the core concept of the deck. They both add extra troops to the deck, are both 1 cost, and are both great troops themselves. The Specters created by the Chosen are 2ATT/2DEF troops with Flight and also let you draw another card when they enter play and only cost 1 resource, which is just incredible value – a few of them in play and your opponent will have some real troubles.

Pack Raptors are similarly fantastic value – they are 1ATT/1DEF with Swiftstrike, again for 1 cost, but when you play it you add 4 more Pack Raptors to your deck, and each Pack Raptor gets +1ATT/+1DEF for each Pack Raptor in play. It will only take a few of these in play to become a series problem for your opponent, and because of their low cost being able to play multiple copies in a single turn will rapidly tip the game in your favour.

Petulant Wyldebeest

Another great value card for some quick burst damage, the Wyldebeest is a 3ATT/3DEF troop with Speed, again for 1 cost. The catch here is that it is shuffled back into your deck at the end of your turn, gaining a +3/+3 buff in the processes. Obviously you then need to draw that copy again, but if you do you’re getting a 6ATT/6DEF creature with Speed for 1 cost. Mindblowing value right there, and the extra card draw in the deck will hopefully help get this guy out sooner.

Cerebral Fulmination

I’ve talked about this card before – you can even see the initial formation of the idea for this deck! Cerebral Fulmination is generally not considered a good card in most circumstances – allowing your opponent that extra card draw (combined with the fact that they’ll get the extra draw before you will) makes it unpopular is most cases. Indeed, it might not even work well in this deck, but since this was the card that gave me the idea for the deck I figured I’d give it a go. The very low cost of our deck hopefully allows us to make much better use of the extra card draw than the opponent will be able to, but this ultimately might not pan out.

Burn/Ragefire

The other part of the deck strategy, Burn and Ragefire are nice cheap direct damage actions that will let us pick off problematic enemy troops or push through extra damage to their Champion. The hope is that all the card draw will allow for multiple copies of Ragefire to be played per game, triggering the escalation effect to a nice high value. I originally had 2 Burns and 2 copies of Burn To The Ground in here to help finish things off if the game stalled out, and it’s entirely possible I might put those back in.

Countermagic

I was of two minds about whether or not to include Countermagic, but I ultimately decided to put a couple in to help offset the fact that the opponent is getting extra card draw – if I can counter a couple of their key plays, it should stop them taking too much advantage. Still, this card could quite happily be switched out for something else, I think.

Dream Dance

This seemed too perfect not to include a few copies of. Extra card draw plus the ability to play a good chunk of the cards in the deck for free for a turn could help us out massively. The potential problem here is that we never have enough cards in our hand to take full advantage of it, so I could see switching it out for something else is that turns out to be the case.

Sabotage

Another way of offsetting the advantage the opponent gets from Cerebral Fulmination, filling their deck with booby traps is a nice way to both slow them down and ruin their card draw for the turn. If I ultimately removed Cerebral Fulmination for another method of increasing card draw, I’d probably swap this out too. But maybe not, because it’s still a neat card.

Replicator’s Gambit

Another card that seemed to mesh well with the overall theme of the deck. Again the idea is that the odds of redrawing the replicated card are increased by all the extra card draw. Granted, it may not happen often, but playing a Pack Raptor with the gambit effect on it is basically a guaranteed win.

Shrine of Prosperity

Shrine of Prosperity is just a generally handy card, increasing the quality of the cards you draw. Admittedly it’s not a great fit since it only effects the top card and we’re hoping to draw multiple cards a turn so I could see switching it out if I found a card that fit better, but it’s still a nice little buff so I’m happy to include a couple of them.

Chaos Key

Very much a “just in case” card. If worst comes to worst and the opponent has some card in which is absolutely ruining our day, at least we know we have something in our deck that can just get rid of it.

Shards of Fate

Hopefully obvious – with 3 Shards in the deck, the non-basic resource helps us increase the odds of making sure we get the threshold we need to play the cards in our hand.

So, that’s what makes up the deck. Honestly, I don’t really know how well this deck will do, it might work and it might not; I wouldn’t be surprised either way. It has its problems, certainly, but it doesn’t rely on any one thing to happen in order to win which I think is a big point in its favour. You may also have noticed that the deck doesn’t have a Champion – that’s because I’ve not actually decided on one yet. I’m currently leaning towards either Running Deer or Waytt The Sapper, but Poca, The Conflagrater is also an option. I think it might be one of those cases where I just need to try it and see which works better.

The biggest obvious change to make is to find a way of replacing Cerebral Fulmination. I could add in some Oracle Song, but I’m not a huge fan of that, plus it’s a little limited. Branching out into Blood and taking Pact of Pain might also work, but the deck is already pretty crowded at 3 shards – adding in a 4th is almost certainly a bad idea. I could replace Ruby entirely with Blood, but I’m not sure there are enough decent replacements for Burn, so that would require a bit more thought.

So, that’s the deck! If you have any suggestions for ways to improve the deck, cards that would fit better, or just want to say how terrible the deck idea is, drop a comment below!

In Other News…

– Yesterday’s weekly update to the Hex Kickstarter page revealed that Alpha is currently scheduled to be released on October 8th! But you probably already knew that. Obviously this is subject to change – I know first hand how these things can slip. Things go wrong, unforeseen stuff happens and the date is missed and the waiting public goes insane. My point is, expect the date to be missed, and try to restrain yourself when that happens.

– We also got our weekly card spoilers – 2 nifty uncommon troop cards. I really like the Phoenix Guard Trainer, though it seems a little odd that it doesn’t have Flight itself. Can’t help but wonder just how many more Inspire cards there are yet to be seen!

– The Glossary has undergone some pretty big updates over the last day or so and it continues to be revised. If you have anything you want to see added, drop a comment and let me know!

That’s all for now! Check back next time, when I reveal what really lies at the centre of the Earth!