Patch v823 Breakdown

We have an exciting patch for you this week Hexers! Eight new cards, balance changes, new sound effects, pretty much everything but the kitchen sink…now that I think about it, maybe adding a kitchen sink isn’t a bad idea! Let’s start off with the Patch Notes.

NEW FEATURES

• Final implementation of the chain is now live: Triggered powers that don’t target don’t use the chain. In all other cases, powers use the chain. Click here for more information.

GENERAL

• Cards have been renumbered to account for removed cards

• Tournament lobby has fewer text strings

• Drop/Forfeit button now works correctly in tournaments

• Text in the tournament lobby is now larger

• Blood, Diamond, Ruby, Wild, as well as some Sapphire cards now have come into play sound effects (this is a work in progress)

• Holding down right click to zoom into a card will no longer loop the zoom effect.

• Filtering in sealed tournaments no longer also filters the deck you are building

NEW CARDS

• Wrathwood Colossus

• Lixil, the Deathless Gem

• Adaptable Infusion Device

• Bone Warrior//Pile of Bones

• Servant of Shathak

• Splinter of Azathoth

• Briar Legion

• Briarpatch Conjuror

GAMEPLAY

• Soul Marble has had its cost raised from 1 to 2

• Soul Cavalry has had its cost raised from 1 to 2

• Soul Armaments has had its cost raised from 1 to 2

• Shellsafe Sure Shot has had its attack raised from 2 to 3

• Bloodcrazed Zealot has had its attack raised from 4 to 5 and its defense lowered from 5 to 4

• Grim Skull Sorcerer has had its attack lowered from 2 to 1 and its defense raised from 1 to 2

• Mimic has had its threshold raised from 1 Sapphire to 2

• Mimic now reads: “Create a replica of target troop and put it into your hand.”

• Shield Trainer has had its attack lowered from 2 to 1 and its defense lowered from 2 to 1

• Shield Trainer now reads: “Inspire – As another troop with cost equal to or greater than this troop’s cost enters play under your control, it gets permanent +0[ATK]/+1[DEF].”

• Kraken Guard Mariner has had its attack raised from 1 to 2 and its defense raised from 1 to 2

• Kraken Guard Mariner now reads: “Inspire – As another troop with cost equal to or greater than this troop’s cost enters play under your control, it gets permanent Steadfast.”

• The Fate Rack now reads: “[(1)], [ACT] à Bury the top two cards of target champion’s deck.”

• Boltpaw Wizard now reads: “[(1)], Sacrifice a troop: Revert target troop. [(1)], Sacrifice a troop: Bury the top card of target champion’s deck.”

• Xarlox the Brood Lord now reads: “When Xarlox deals damage to an opposing champion, bury the top three cards of their deck. For each troop buried this way, create a Spiderspawnand put it into play.”

• Mortar Strike now reads: “Deal 3 damage to target opposing troop. Bury all troops from the top three cards of that troop’s controller’s deck.”

• Twisted Fate now reads: “When you draw a card, bury the top card of each opposing champion’s deck.”

• Chronic Madness now reads: “Bury the top 4 cards of target champion’s deck. Escalation – Shuffle this action into your deck, then permanently add 4 to the bold number in the text of each Chronic Madness you own in all zones.”

• Protectorate Defender now reads: “SOCKETABLE MAJOR When this troop dies, shuffle it into your deck.

• Crash of Beasts now reads: “Create 1 Rhinoceros and put it into play.

Escalation – Shuffle this action into your deck, then permanently add 1 to the bold number in the text of each Crash of Beasts you own in all zones.”

• Replicator’s Gambit now reads: “Shuffle target troop you control into your deck. It gets permanent “When this troop enters play, create six replicas of it and put them into play.” Draw a card.”

• Doppelgadget now reads: “At the start of your turn, you may transform this artifact into a replica of target non-Shapeshifter artifact you control. It retains this power.”

• Lord Adam, the Powerful now reads: “Steadfast. Void Lord Adam, Lord Benjamin, and Lord Alexander you control: Create The Triumvirate and put it into play.”

• Stormcall now reads: “Exhaust all opposing troops.”

• Construction Plans: War Hulk now reads: “Exhaust any number of Dwarves and/or Robots you control à Add a construction counter to this artifact for each troop exhausted this way. Then, if there are five or more, exhaust this artifact, and transform it into a War Hulk.”

• Rocket Ranger now reads: “While you control one or more artifacts, this troop gets Flight.While you control three or more artifacts, this troop gets +2[ATK]/+2[DEF]. While you control five or more artifacts, when this troop attacks, it deals 4 damage to target opposing champion.”

• Droo’s Colossal Walker now reads: “Crush This troop must attack each turn if able. This troop can’t ready during your ready step. While this troop is exhausted: [BASIC] Pay 8 healthà Ready this troop.”

• Shamed Gladiator now reads: “When this troop enters play, it deals 2 damage to you.”

• Eldon’s Distress Signal can no longer incorrectly exhaust troops already exhausted to transform

• Sliver of the Immortal Spear can no longer incorrectly use exhausted Sliver of the Immortal Spears to deal 5,000 damage

• Air Superiority now correctly buffs troops using Sapphire of Sky gem

• The Triumvirate’s ability now resolves in the correct order

• Persecute has been removed from the game

• Field of Poppies has been removed from the game

• Baby Yeti has had an art upgrade

• Carrion Blob has had an art upgrade

• Evolve is now a common

• Nibblin Hunting Pack is now an uncommon

KNOWN ISSUES

• The tournament chess clock has been temporary switched to 30 minutes per game to account for a known issue

• Cards that bury cards from a deck visually do not show the correct card that is being buried.

• Troops with Invincible incorrectly ignore uniqueness

• Lixil the Deathless Gem is not correctly gaining Invincible when a player does not have one of each threshold upon playing her, but then later gains one of each threshold.

A perfect finisher for Wild based control decks. Including a healthy amount of ramp to your deck will make up for this troops heavy cost. Once on the battlefield Wrathwood Colossus is extremely difficult to deal with. If you’re having trouble facing this troop try adding void effects to your deck.

Lixil’s come in to play ability makes her very powerful in multiple shard decks. Even if you’re only playing a diamond deck, Lixil is still a good deal for only three resources. If you manage to trigger her threshold ability she becomes a sturdy blocker that becomes extremely difficult for your opponents to deal with.

A cheap and useful artifact, Adaptable Infusion Device will be used in many decks. Its ability to add any threshold in your deck allows players the flexibility to play two different two threshold cards on turn two. Also, its ability to replace its self for only four resources shouldn’t be overlooked.

Bone Warrior is a great choice if your deck is in need of a sturdy blocker to carry you into the mid/late game. Because he transforms into Pile of Bones when he dies, he can be very tricky for your opponents to deal with. Using revert on Pile of Bones will cause it to transform back into Bone Warrior, this can be a cheaper way to get transform your Pile of Bones on your opponents turn. If you’re having trouble dealing with Bone Warrior try adding void effects to your deck.

A powerful one drop flyer with the downside of needing twenty unique cards in your deck. Sticking with only sapphire will make this troop much easier to play for constructed. However, its true strength is in limited formats where playing many different cards is more common.

A strong flyer, Splinter of Azathoth’s true power is its one shot ability. If you suspect your opponent may have a way to remove this troop after you play it. Waiting till you have six resources available before playing Splinter of Azathoth may be the wise choice.

A three resource two attack and defense troop may not seem appealing at first. However, Briar Legion’s ability makes this troop exciting to play. Using any replicate effect is a sure way to increase it’s attack and defense quickly. Also don’t forget you can return this troop to your hand and play it again to stack up its bonus.

This troop doesn’t take long to get out of hand. If she is left on the field for to many turns you will be able to add a large amount of Briar Legions to your deck. Combining draw effects on top of this will greatly increase your chances of drawing the added Briar Legions and allow you to quickly swarm your opponent.

Hello my dear HEXimaniacs! I’m Ben Stoll, lead PVP designer for HEX. Today I’ll be talking about where we’ve finally ended up with the way HEX’s game engine interacts with the chain.

As anybody who’s been lending their time to playtesting Alpha with us knows, we’ve been to a couple of different spots when it comes to the chain. It’s always been very important to us to provide a game engine that facilitates the strategic depth and reactive options that our players expect out of a full TCG experience, while also keeping the experience smooth and accessible.

With this last change, we’re making it so that all activated powers use the chain again, rather than just activated powers that target.

This means that the only powers that don’t use the chain are triggered powers that also don’t target. We still feel that these powers account for almost all of the cards that use the chain somewhat unnecessarily. Here are two examples of cards that don’t use the chain.

Although we feel there are still some activated powers that don’t target and still don’t really enhance gameplay by using the chain, most of them do, and we want to make these rules universally applicable. We’ve concluded that it also just feels right for activated powers to use the chain—whereas a trigger is sort of an “automatic” and inevitable piece of a turn, an activated power is manually controlled by the player. Anytime a player actively affects the game, it’s somewhat natural to have a moment to respond, and it’s natural for the game to take a little pause. Here are two examples of cards with powers that do use the chain, Bombsmith because it’s targeting a troop and Giant Caterpillar because it’s an activated power.

It won’t happen often, but we’re also glad to avoid the messiness of situations where multiple activated powers are all engaged back to back—it not only feels like you’re being denied a natural reaction window, but it can also be easy to lose track of what’s happening when a player activates multiple powers in a row, all without the game pausing or providing a window to react. If I activate my Secret Laboratory, then activate my Concubunny, then activate my HEX Engine, a lot has just occurred with only one of the players having a good handle on all of it or having priority.

We hope that you all will be happy with this change—we feel we’ve still got the biggest “extra click offenders” taken care of, but not at the cost of those epic moments where each player attempts to trump the other with a new reactionary play that builds the chain higher.

I know I’ve said it before, but I just want to reiterate how grateful we are to have such a thoughtful group of invested players helping us chip HEX into perfection by joining in our Alpha process. We know that these changes can feel jarring, but in the end we’re super happy that you all are there patiently trying them out and giving us feedback, so that we can end up with the best game possible!

Hi players! Ben Stoll here again. I want to discuss a few cards changing in Set 1 and introduce you to Replicas.

In previous design discussions surrounding “the best way to execute copies” there were some cool thematic and mechanical ideas that we sort of left on the table. So, we recently decided that we should simply execute two different takes on this design space. We’ll still be introducing “Copy” effects in the near future, but we’ll be kicking set 1 off with “Replica” effects.

So what, you may be asking, is a Replica?

When you create a Replica of a card, it’s like a copy of that card in every sense, but it looks at the way the card is in your collection.

Additionally…

-A Replica loses all threshold and becomes an artifact.

-A Replica always gains the subtype “Replica” in addition to its other types.

-A Replica also always gains the sub-type “Robot” in addition to the replicated card’s types, if it’s a troop.

-Replicas never have uniqueness (so if I make a replica of Ozawa, they can both exist in play).

So, permanent modifications (either positive or negative) and socketed gems won’t be a part of the replica since they’re not a part of the blueprint so to speak, but you can play multiples of the replica and you will be able to replay them should the troops bounce back to your hand or come back to life out of the graveyard.

Here is an example of a troop that’s been effected by Atrophy this game, and a replica of that troop.

The new Mimic design shows off a little bit of the cool space we can explore with Replicas—you can key off of your opponent’s card, and because Replicas don’t retain threshold, you’ll be able to easily play any Replicas from your hand. Players building decks that key off of robots or artifacts will also have a little bit of new space to explore—you can make a robot Replica of anything!

Replicator’s Gambit is very close to the same—you lose a little bit of functionality that was offered with a copy effect, but you also gain the ability to slaughter your opponent with say, an army of Robot Dragons no longer limited by the Unique tag.

As you can see, the thematic direction of Replicas is also owning its own space, and is right in line with the Dwarves. Finally, the Doppelgadget will also now be transforming into a Replica.

Like I said, we will still be doing standard copy effects in the future—where a card retains ALL properties, including threshold, shard, and uniqueness—but we believe it will be beneficial for our exploration of design space to have access to both of these effects, and we want to do both of them right. Replicas aren’t in the game yet, but they’ll be in an upcoming patch in the very near future.

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