This past week marked the release of the newest set of Hex TCG, and with it a celebration release event that saw players draft 3x Shattered Destiny packs for a chance at winning an AA Filk Ape. Having participated in around a dozen drafts myself, I had a good chance to play around with the new cards and see what was working and what wasn’t. After a rocky start I managed to win my last 4 drafts including 6 straight finals appearances with two of those finals losses coming due to game related bugs. I share below what I believe to be the most powerful archetypes in the current 2-2-1 limited environment and what makes them worthy of inclusion.

Tier 1 Archetypes

RDS Humans

A well built Ruby-Diamond-Sapphire Human deck is comfortably the most powerful archeytpe of the new drafting landscape, period. Having access to amazing color fixing in Royal Herald, ridiculously cheap and good standalone troops in Vanguard of Gawaine and Vanguard of Cerulea, and powerful troop buffers in Elite Pyromancer and Kraken Guard Seapriest – all at common may I add – makes this deck super consistent and at the same time very powerful. In fact out of the 17 common Humans only a handful are not GREAT. Bastion of Adamanth is a huge body that shuts down opposing defenders for two turns, Phoenix Guard Messenger is a flying Moon’ariu Sensei, Phoenix Guard Enforcer is a threatening flyer, Prophet of Wren has a good body and relevant ability that helps you make comebacks against faster decks, and even Sly Huntress can be devastating in conjunction with other Inspire troops. The card pool is large enough to support 2 maybe even 3 Human drafters so you’re likely to face off against this deck at least once if you plan on going all the way.

What pushes this archetype over the edge is Sir Giles’ Hero ability which gives +1/+0 to all Humans (and any other trait that the troop you target has) – this would all be well and balanced… if if it didn’t affect troops in all zones! I don’t know who thought this was a good idea, but it really is a slap in the face of Palamedes who gives +1/+1 to a single troop for the same cost.

With this champion power, picking risky 1 cost troops like Queensguard and Wounded War Hero (who might not be so good by themselves or late in the game) is a trivial matter because they will often be at minimum a 2/1 or often times a 3/1.

Uncommons like Royal Diplomat, Royal Cutblood, Royal Enforcer, and Royal Valkyr are rare quality bombs that will win you games.

Verdict: When you put all these factors together, it’s no surprise that Humans are just that damn good. I think they are so good that I’m actually holding the belief that Sir Giles’ ability ought to be nerfed – the first time I suggest a nerf of any type in the game. Changing his ability to only affect troops in play and perhaps also in hand, would make things much more ‘fair’. The hope is that the inclusion of a Shards of Fate booster pack will diminish the synergies and take away some of the key cards like Royal Herald, but with powerful humans like Buccaneer in Set 1, the impact remains to be seen.

B/W Charge

With RDS colors being dedicated mostly to humans and dwarf/robots – Blood and Wild are ripe for the picking for those on the board who want to try to build that deck to beat Humans. While these colors usually indicate a tribal foray into Shin’Hare, the synergy that the rabbits provide is not nearly as potent as those of the Humans. There is no longer a good incentive to go Mono Wild or Mono Blood without cards like Honeycap and Terrible Transfer, respectively. We can also no longer go for reliable combos like Boulder Brute + Wild Aura or multiple Darkspire cards. This means we have to build a jumbled deck of the best cards in the colors, and luckily it often works better than it sounds.

Perhaps one of the most underrated cards in the set is Tormented Ritualist. This guy can single-handedly win you games and you really can’t have too many of them. If you manage to pick up a few, you will want to pair him up with a Reactor Bot (Inductocopter Bot and Charge Hulk if possible as well). Once you have these two cards great cards like Crackling Rot and Crackling Sprout become even better. This is essentially the heart of this deck.

As far as other good commons in the color that go well in this deck, we have Killblade of the Milky Eye, Wreckasaurus, Grave Nibbler (note that this currently can’t be buffed/debuffed due to a bug), and Spirit Oracle. You’ll probably also find yourself playing Wretched Wrangler for the chump blockers it provides and possibly more with the +1/+1 champion power.

In terms of uncommons Wakizashi Ambusher and Warrior of Andronicus are extremely good, but after those two cards the power level falls off quite a bit.

With this deck you will want to get off to a fast start, and do a lot of damage early so that your Tormented Ritualist or a Crackling Sprout can finish games off. Kog’tepetl’s Thirst is one of the sleeper cards here that can act both as a finisher and removal – and having at least one of these in your deck will almost always pay off.

Verdict: While not packing the sheer powerlevel of Humans in the mid to late game, this deck is very consistent and the fast start can really throw off opponents whatever they might be playing.

R/S Dwarves/Robots

Dwarf Robots are back again in Set 2 but aren’t the well oiled machine that we have been accustomed to from set 1. Gone are the great synergetic cards like Gearsmith, Pterobot, Researcher Adept and instead we pretty much have some aggro Dwarves and a bunch of things to construct.The number of construction plans have increased quite a bit in Set 2, but they still need robot/dwarf tapping and compete directly with each other for activation so picking too many can be detrimental.

The most impressive common is easily Construct Foreman and he pretty much defines how you want to be playing. Paired with Electroid it might be the most powerful start you can get off to in this limited block. Flak Scrapper is again one of the allstars in the deck and Recovery Specialist ensures you still do get plenty of value from playing the Robot/Dwarf archetype.

Mesmeric Hypnoscientist, Scraptech Brawler, and Underground Overdriver represent the new breed of Dwarves that come at you explosively and unexpectedly and can really swing the momentum of games out of nowhere.

Uncommons like Construction Plans: Bot Shop and Augementation Bot are great in the late game if the game drags on. The same is true for S.P.A.M bot.

Verdict: Overall the way you play Dwarf/Robots has been severely changed. Instead of the board clog that Gearsmith and even Charge Bot provided, the near guaranteed card draw of Researcher Adept, and the amazing board presence that Pterobot provided we have now a much more aggressive Dwarf/Robot deck that asks you to pressure opponents instead of soaking it. While the traditional ‘make a bunch of Worker Bots and craft things’ playstyle’s power level is questionable in terms of consistency, the aggressive Dwarf route is as strong as anything out there.

Tier 1.5 Archetypes

Mill

Mill decks are like Hollywood actresses – for everyone that makes it big, there are a ton behind the scenes that lack the talent and end up falling short of the prized goal. With enough Murmurs From The Void and Dementia Daisies you can really ‘get there’ but you’ll be heavily reliant on these cards and hope your opponent doesn’t put together a lethal ground game early on.

Paladin Ping I’m not sure what these decks are really called but pinging opponents is usually the name of the game. It involves using Gozzog as your champion power and trying to accumulate as many Paladin of the Necropolis as you can. Neophyte of Xarlox holds the ground, as well as gaining you life (and making your opponent lose life with the Paladin). The second color can be Diamond with its access to control and life gain cards or you can take a more aggressive approach with Arena Regular. Ebony Pawn is another card that quickly stacks the damage on without interaction. This inclusion of a card like Adamanthian Scrivener from Set 1 helps this archetype but a third Shards of Fate booster also means less chances at drafting the key piece in Paladin of the Necropolis. With the deck being reliant on an uncommon like Paladin of Necropolis, this is not a strategy I’d ever advise taking but if you see it being open then it’s definitely a viable strategy. You will want to pick cards like Reactor Bot, Tormented Ritualist and the Crackling cycle of cards highly if you go down this path.

Crush Beasts With Mentor of Oakhenge providing early game and troop fetching and Grand Squirrel Titan, Thorntongue Snapdragon, Wreckasaurus, Warrior of Andronicus and Lumbering Sparklespore providing the beats – a Wild heavy big troop deck can be pretty powerful, especially with the diminished removal in the set to take care of giant troops. You will likely get several copies of Wreckasaurus and his Crush giving ability removes the reliance on Wild Aura that was prevalent for such decks in Set 1. On the flip side, Wild doesn’t have a single removal in the common or uncommon slots in Set 2 so you’ll often be at the mercy of your opponent, hoping he doesn’t have some evasion/lifelink troop that you can’t deal with. That ultimately makes it fall short of being considered among the top tier decks but at times this archetype will look like a world beater.

Tier 2 Archetypes

Shin’Hare Going for a pure Shin’Hare strategy in the 2-2-1 format is already much better than the newbie trap that it essentially was in Set 1. Still, it requires playing too many mediocre cards and hoping that together they will become greater than the sum of its parts. So while Shin’Hare are nothing to laugh at anymore, they require a lot of moving pieces to function properly to take on the best decks and in a limited environment that’s usually easier said than done.

BR Orcs Orcs saw a noticeable drop in power level in set 2. Troops are nowhere near as versatile or aggressive as set 1 cards like Gem Crazed Berserker and Veteran Gladiator and the lack of permanent buffs like Ruby Aura really removes the scary aspects of an aggressive orc deck. BR Orcs was a legitimate T1 aggro deck in Set 1 but these new cards really fall short in the mid to late game and ultimately make this an archetype you’ll want to avoid.

BD Control Blood/Diamond had insane removal options in Set 1 and unfortunately in set 2 you’ll have to do with much worse. What elevates this archetype into even a discussion are uncommons like Cockatwice and Sentinel of Nulzann which are insanely good in these colors (Swiftstike and Rage are like Peanut Butter and Jelly). Unfortunately you’ll be competing for those limited good cards in the color with many other drafters so it’s not an archetype you can force by any means.