Friday Update – Cry of the Phoenix

Welcome to a round up of the week! We have a new patch, tournament updates, interviews with our Cosmic Crown winner, and more!

Interview with a Star

Last weekend, Urshulgi piloted his way to victory in our first Cosmic Crown Showdown of the year. As he walks away with a cool $2,000, we wanted to grab a few words from the man himself about his cosmic encounters:

So first off, on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you?

I’m at freaking 10 🙂 It was such an intense experience, the nerdgasm was real 🙂

Tell us a bit about yourself – How long have you been a part of the HEX community?

Well, I’ve been playing HEX since about the release of Armies of Myth. Straight away I loved the game for its virtual-only features and depth of gameplay. Before HEX I played competitive mtg, yu-gi-oh, and dualmasters… though only in Denmark. When I’m not HEXing, I’m a construction painter and struggling artist.

What did you expect going into the Cosmic Crown Showdown?

I expected to have fun, and hoped that my deck would do better then it had on the ladder lately.

How did you prepare? Give us your rocky training montage.

First I ran up and down a lot of stairs… loudly and off-key sang Eye of the Tiger… then I had some discussions with the guild I’m in—”Team Chosen.” I playtested a guildmember’s newest Brain child, then tried to get a feel for the moldings of the new constructed environment by playing lots of ladder games and looking at some hexmeta deck lists.

What is your favorite constructed archetype?

My favorite Constructed archetype has got to be midrange/control, preferably abusing the crypt. Naturally, I play a lot of Kagu. Before that, Winter Moon was a great go-to champ.

How did you choose your constructed deck?

I experimented with some different decks: Bombus, Slagpot, Winter Moon, Kagu. My cardpool and the way I viewed the current meta led me to favor the list I ended up playing.

Were there any decks you were afraid of going in to the tournament?

Ohh yeah, there were several: The hell that is a well played Bride deck, the swarm of the Dreadling masses, and the way too quick aggro decks doing their business.

What is your favorite draft archetype?

I guess it’s Fliers with a hint of removal.

Can you comment on how you chose your strategy in the final draft?

Well, I started out assessing the individual cards’ power potentials, both on their own and the likelihood of some synergies coming my way. Then, a lot of cheap and great flyers turned up, so I went with it. I took all the Griffins I could, hoping they could outrace some of the more cost-heavy cards in the packs.

Do you have any advice to those who aspire to be where you are one day?

If you wanna get ahead in a constructed meta, get to know the top threats. And, if you can’t join em, find a way to beat em. Find out what playstyle you favor and try to tune a deck that works well for you. Aaaaand, remember to have fun doing this 🙂

Any last words?

Don’t worry I got this…

Lost in Space

While our latest Cosmic Crown Showdown was a big success, we know that a few players did experience some client issues that prevented them from competing fully. We are awarding these players 10 Scars of War booster packs and a complimentary ticket to our next Cosmic Crown Showdown event. Packs have already been granted. The ticket will be sent as we draw closer to the next CCS tournament. These players were:

ASpork

Babybananadaoc

Biz

Blindwind

Burnheart

Catchman

Diabunny

Egore

Essos

Gallionne

HAVOC

Kovac

Limekiller

Morshadoom

Pravokia

Purpenflurb

RektByPandas

Sugarcandy

Teysa

Rusty

We are committed to providing a smooth tournament experience for all our players. Thank you for being with us on this journey.

Tournament Improvements

Our engineers have been working round-the-clock to improve our tournament architecture. We will start the HEX Clash once we are confident your tournament experience will be smooth. We are getting closer to the HEX Clash every day, and will keep you updated as we kick off the event.

Client Updates and Cosmetics

Speaking of improvements, we had a patch yesterday that introduced a number of awesome improvements. Most excitingly, we can now announce that the Sunsoul Phoenix Collector’s Deck is now available in our in-game store!

This deck comes with two unique Alternate Arts, an animated sleeve, and our first ever AAA card (Animated Alternate Art) card! Set your enemies aflame with jealousy as you flash these fiery beauties:

You can find full details on the deck in our original announcement.

Coming ‘Round the Mountain

Our Forest battleboard will soon be rotating out of the Chark Mart section of our in-game store for at least a year, maybe forever! If you haven’t picked it up already, you have until March 27th @ 10:00am PT when the brand-new Canyon board will take it’s place:

If you want a cool forest shade to slay your opponents under, don’t delay. A new board’s on its way!

VIP Scheduling

We are adjusting our VIP tournament times to provide a better experience for our supporters. We will have two tournaments on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. These tournaments will always be at the same time so they are easy to remember and join. The new schedule is as follows:

Friday/Saturday/Sunday

1st VIP of the day: 1000 PST (Worldclock)

2nd VIP of the day: 1800 PST (Worldclock)

We hope you enjoy these new offerings moving forward.

Season 4 Ladder Sleeve Vote

We are opening the Season 4 ladder sleeves to a vote! Check out our poll in the forums and choose between these two fantastic options:

If you’d like to have a say, vote today!

We are excited to announce the return of our Platinum Plunder tournament! On April 8th and 9th, join us for another daring adventure on the high-seas. Compete for treasure to the tune of 500,000 Platinum and an exclusive Campaign Mercenary, Salty Sam:

Can you brave the shark-filled tournament and walk away with fists full of platinum? Get your pirate on and find out!

Finally, our second release weekend event starts right now! Play in special Scars of War only formats and grab exclusive alternate arts while you do so.

This Scars of War only format will close on Monday 3/20 at 10am Pacific. Enjoy!

Got any questions? Want to chat with other players? Then discuss this article in our Forums! You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, or enjoy regular streams on our official Twitch channel.