Hex Entertainment opened up the test servers this week to give players a first glimpse at the PvE side of things, allowing players to play the Arena mode which pits the player against 20 AI opponents for a chance to win loot. I myself have spent most of my time thus far on the test servers doing something totally different: checking out the 900+ equipment that were added to the client.

If you’re not aware each champion has 6 equipment slots and you will be able to attach equipment you earn throughout the PvE campaign to your champion to fundamentally change how the base cards work (each equipment alters one card, some cards have up to 3 equipment). What results are totally new, often much improved cards, and thus force players to re-evaluate each and every card from the ground up.

In any other game, these 931 new pieces of equipment (made for cards in Set 1+2) could have represented 3 new sets and would have constituted one year’s worth of content for the game. In Hex however, they were casually revealed through the test server and will only represent one part of the PvE experience. Clearly not every one of these pieces of equipment have been finalized with a lot of them missing coding while others likely to see some balance passes. Still, the body of work is there and we can now finally see and feel what it will be like to have equipment in a TCG game, something that was previously unimaginable. I look through and share some of the equipment to give a glimpse of what happens when you merge equipment with a TCG.

Equipment That Make You Go WTF

Let’s start with the fun stuff. When Cory and the team mentioned how they wanted to use the PvE space to make goofy cards and equipment – they certainly weren’t kidding. Here are a pair of goofy ones that I spotted that should blow some minds. I have no idea how the Infernal Professor equipment works but if players have to transfer their cards to another collection and fill it all up with goodies like Spectral Lotuses to increase their chances of getting a great card – that could lead to some problems. Spending gold to boost card powers would usually be regarded as some kind of P2W ploy but here it’s used as a one-off to enhance the flavor of Minotaur Mercenary and makes for a fun change.

Equipment That Change Winning Conditions

One of the biggest attractions in the TCG genre is when the winning and losing conditions change and it seems like equipment will make it possible for pretty much any card to have its own winning condition if they so wished (of course this design space will be used sparingly but it’s certainly fun to imagine they could print an equipment for even a junk card like Rigid Buffalo that read “if you control 10 Rigid Buffalo, you win the game” and no one would blink an eye.

Equipment That Changes Core Rules

In Hex no rule is safe from being broken – including meta rules like how you mulligan or build your deck. I was personally delighted to see an equipment that actually changed the mulligan rules – something I’ve been harping about on the official forums for quite some time. (Now we just need a champion or two of this type, and I’ll shut up about this forever, I promise!)

The Principle Behind Most Equipment

While I’ve shown quite a few unique and fun pieces of equipment – a lot of the equipment seem to function around one core objective and that is fulfilling the wish of players who looked at the normal cards and would say to themselves: “I wish this card had ___ ability”. For the most part they deliver, making many of the cards that were previously on the cusp of playable into serious contenders to make your deck.

Cards That Gain Niche Status

With PvE dungeons and encounters changing the core game rules and systems quite a bit the definition of a good card will change from encounter to encounter. This is where cards that through equipment gain niche unique abilities can instantly rise from ‘junk cards’ to ‘must own cards’. This is obviously great for the game as card and equipment hold on to a respectable prices and those with a huge collection get rewarded as they are instantly able to tap into their vast collection and create decks that match-up great against certain encounters. It’s always been my thought that the ‘end-game’ in Hex PvE is having as big a collection as possible and these types of cards – and encounters that require them – make this all worthwhile and something the players will have motivation to chase.

From Terrible To Respectable

Thanks to equipment some cards get pumped enough to get consideration for T1 decks, other cards gain valuable niche status, but there are certain cards that were previously terrible that simply needed redemption. Have a look at what some previously ridiculed cards look like now with their equipment – I think it’s safe to say they will now earn some respect from deckbuilders.

Some Snoozers

Not every card gets a huge bump to their playability. Some troops simply get an extra point of attack or defense while others having their activated ability cost reduced. Some cards meanwhile have some abilities attached with a very low chance of activation. I don’t want to be quick to label any of these as totally useless as we don’t know what kind of PvE champions there will be or what type of encounter requirements there will be – but totally useless equipment seem kind of a waste. Regardless, it would be unfair to expect every single one of the thousands of equipments that will be in the game to have some higher purpose.

Overpowered?!

I imagine some of these equipments haven’t been finalized because there are some that seem to be too good to print in the current state. The most glaring one might be Lord Benjamin, the Wise – which suspiciously is the card of Lead Designer Ben Stoll himself. I’ve added some others which I feel might be a bit too powerful.

Degenerate Combos?

Surprisingly I didn’t see any stupid degenerate combos while looking through the equipment. Of course my brain isn’t advanced enough to look through 931 equipment and consider every possible permutation and interaction with every card but there was nothing too alarming. The worst I found is a Lionel Flynn buffed Daring Swordsman being Boulder Toss to do quadruple damage (5×4=20). Equipped cards like Ebony Pawn will keep combo lovers hungry to find engines to go ‘infinite’.

The Importance Of Slots

Anyone who’s looked through the equipment might have noticed that often the most desirable pieces of equipment were at the weapon slot. While this might seem slightly disappointing since you can only equip one of these equipments at a time, it makes for a healthier environment I believe since Hex Ent seems to have used the equipment slot as a balancing mechanic.

Many of the powerful cards that constitute T1 decks have equipment that share slots and this forces players to make new choices even if they wish to play the same PvP deck in PvE. Some cards that were previously not considered for T1 status could easily replace a card in a T1 deck just based on it having an equipment in an unused slot. When you add the fact that some cards have more than one equipment and all the decisions that have to be made – you’re looking at a level of min-max fine tuning that will reward the best of deck builders and make it harder for clear net decks to form.

Slots are also important to keep equipment combos from going off (simply make the equipment in the same slot) and also sometimes is useful for buffing certain underplayed archetypes (by making their equipment in different slots).

A Word About Wild West Format

I don’t want to go too off-topic but having seen the equipment and some PvE cards I don’t really see a reason why the Wild West format (where equipment, PvE cards, and mercenaries are allowed) would not become the default mode of play for most casual gamers. For those playing casually and for fun, the idea is always to build fun and wacky decks and this is made much more possible with the addition of equipment/PvE cards/mercenaries. I understand why HexEnt took the precautions they did and totally seperated these two game modes, but as long as the crazy combos are kept in check, I think that even competitive PvP modes and tournaments under the Wild West rules could prove to be popular.

I think that any bans in this format should be in terms of combinations of cards/equipment/mercenaries as oppose to the banning of any one card/equipment/mercenary (unless of course they really made a huge mistake). I don’t know if HexEnt will ever bother maintaining this Wild West mode like this with bans of certain combos and potential nerfs but if not I’m sure certain fan sites and guilds will fill the void and make this into a thing. At the very least I can promise we at HexPrimal will support this mode competitively if no one else does – so don’t look at these equipment just with an eye for how to beat an AI opponent, that’s only half the fun.

Equipment In Reserves?

It would be nice if Hex allowed one piece of equipment in the reserves. Otherwise, taking away certain cards which you have equipped for and replacing them with cards that don’t have equipment becomes totally undesirable. If we are expected to just bring on reserves that should replace cards in the maindeck that don’t have equipment, that seems to take away a significant chunk of the thought process and possibilities behind building a deck.

Final (Initial) Thoughts on Equipment

When Hex announced that they would make a unique equipment for every card in the game that would change how those cards functioned it sounded like too big of a promise. Just like a drunken Facebook status update on New Year’s Eve promising a bold resolution you’d never live up to, I imagined the folks at Cryptozoic might have felt at times the same with equipment. Even the thought of drawing near a thousand different icons to represent these items boggles the mind but having to create new abilities that not only make sense flavour wise but also are balanced in an environment as crazy as PvE- is a scary task to take on. But it looks like they’ve actually pulled it off!

One of the main concerns with equipment was that the game would be blowing through a ton of design space by creating variations of cards that could probably never be reprinted in card form. After all this is exactly how MTG has been churning out set after set over the past few years – basically featuring the same cards but with new abstract variations that barely make a difference. But with Hex, this really doesn’t seem to be a problem and to the contrary allows them to add some neat touches to some designs they probably would have never revisited in the first place.

As I was looking through the equipment it was really like stepping into a parallel universe where everything was the same but at the same time totally different. I can’t wait to actually earn these equipment, build crazy decks with them, get my ass whooped by some bosses, go back to the drawing board (possibly go to our deck database and hopefully get some inspiration from those that have lived to tell the tale) and do it all over again.

The concept of marrying a TCG with equipment might have seemed crazy at first but now that we see it first hand, it makes all the sense in the world. Thanks to Hex Entertainment for an amazing feature!