HEX Update – Sealed Decks and Prep Phase

Hi HEXers. Friday is the best day of the week, as we tell you everything that’s happening with your favorite game.

The art department is working on different UI elements, as well as pack opening. Production is keeping things on schedule, and R&D is tuning the Smoldering Dead dungeon. We continue to collect great Set 2 art, and you can see Grzegorz Pedrycz’s Crackling Vortex below. The engineers are bug squashing, feature implementing machines—and I say that in the most complimentary way possible.

We have a big patch coming up soon with two features, one making its return. First, the new one: Sealed Deck support.

Sealed Deck

In Sealed Deck events, you are given 6 booster packs and unlimited access to basic shards (Blood, Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, Wild). You create a 40-card minimum deck with those cards, mixing shards and strategies as you wish. Players typically play a mix of two shards, choosing their most powerful two that provide a solid mix of troops and troop removal actions (like Murder); however, different sets provide different experiences and there may be times you can effectively play all 5 shards!

After building your deck, you then play matches against people who have done the same. Because decks are built from booster packs, the format inspires some incredible deck building strategies as players adjust to a limited pool of cards and find ways to surprise opponents with cards that may not see much play in Constructed formats. No two pools of cards are the same, so every deck is a brand new experience. Sealed Deck is a great way for players with few cards to challenge those with vast collections on equal footing, as well as a way for players to test their ingenuity, deck building skill.

Prep Phase – It’s Back!

This upcoming patch will feature the re-introduction of the Prep Phase as a priority window. By default, the stop in the Prep Phase will be turned off, but it will be able to be turned on manually.

From our lead PVP designer, Ben Stoll:

Originally we felt strongly that eliminating the prep phase altogether was the best thing for the game—the basic idea being that it would streamline gameplay and make for a more accessible experience for our players. And nearly every time, players would get the exact same effect from playing their cards either a phase before or a phase after the prep phase. However, some of the members of our beloved community (that’s you) felt that we hadn’t made the best decision here. There are a lot of compelling reasons supporting putting the Prep Phase back in, many of which are thoughtfully outlined by various forum posters. Some examples include that it provides a moment for players to breathe before the main part of someone’s turn starts, it provides a reactive window in an intuitive spot, and it allows a clear differentiation for the timing of start of turn effects and events occurring during the main phase.

Changes like this are typically seen in Alpha builds, but gamers typically aren’t part of Alphas so they don’t see these changes– and we don’t get the opportunity to respond to their thoughts as effectively.

Hex has always been built on the foundation of a strong partnership with our players through the Kickstarter experience, and this is another example of the sort of benefit the game can receive from that partnership. I want to extend a huge thanks to you all for trying it out, voicing your opinions, and giving us the opportunity to improve HEX on community feedback!

Twitch.TV

Remember that our own Community Manager Shaggy will be playing Havok, the winner of the second Tournament of Streamers. That’s on January 21st at 5 PM Pacific. Make sure to follow our Twitch channel so you don’t miss out on any streams! And if you didn’t download it already, you can spruce up your own video presentation with the HEX overlay. Just right-mouse-click this link and then click “Save Link As.”

Thanks again for all your help in testing HEX alpha, and we hope you’re having a great time as we get closer to closed beta. Please leave any questions or comments in the forums linked below, and don’t forget to Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitch, register on our forums, and Follow our Twitter accounts: HEXTCG, Dusty, William, and Cory.

-Shaqattaq

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