Introducing Siege

Are you the kind of player who tinkers with decks endlessly? Do you love streamlining your decks to make them the most ruthless and brutal experience for your opponent?

Or, are you the kind of player that loves to tear down the mighty? Are you the kind of player who takes on challenges and vows to dismantle the most popular decks?

If you answered yes to either of these, then you’re in the right place.

Welcome to Siege.

Ryan Sutherland, aka HexRysu, here with a new addition that we are excited to unveil today. This year has a lot in store for HEX, and we’re starting it off with a brand-new way to play that is truly unique.

Siege, originally conceptualized as Keep Defense, allows players to either build a gauntlet of decks to defend with or challenge another player’s gauntlet with their own deck.

To properly break down this format, I’ll first explain what it means to create a Siege Defense:

Defense Wins Championships

Players who want to defend in this mode will be building a series of three decks that will make up your Siege Defense.

As a defender, you’ll have access to all the cards in your collection. This includes cards from all eight of our current PvP sets and all sets going forward. On top of that, you’ll have access to every PvE card that we’ve released that you own and any equipment that you own. You’ll also have access to every PvP champion and every gem. That means that, as of today, you’ll have access to over 3,000 cards and 100 champions to build your mighty walls!

Anyone who tries attacking your gauntlet will need to face off against the three decks you’ve set. All you need to do is have one of your three defending decks defeat your opponent to declare victory. The twist here is that you won’t be the one piloting the decks. Instead, these decks will be piloted by our AI so that players can attempt to breach your defenses at all hours of the day.

This means there will be a bit of trial and error to see which decks the AI can master. To ensure that your deck is working optimally, when deckbuilding for Siege Defense, you will be given the ability to play against the decks you built and see the way that the AI pilots it. This will let you tinker with them until you think you’ve found an unbeatable build.

Once you feel that you’ve perfected your lineup, there’s only one thing left to do… Put your money where your cards are.

Of course, the main reason to create an unbeatable lineup of Siege Defense decks is so you can display the number of wins your deck has racked up and cackle with glee. However, for those of you who feel like glory is not enough, there’s always Gold (and Platinum)!

When you build your defense, you’ll also be required to put up a hoard that you wish to defend. You can put up either Gold or Platinum, with 1000 Gold or 50 Platinum as the minimums. There is no maximum to how much you want to put up. This pool of currency will be at risk to anyone who attacks you, but like bait in the trap it will also entice your prey. Anyone who you successfully defend against will reward you currency straight to your account and will also increase the size of your treasure hoard. We’ll go through exactly how that works in a bit.

If you ever need to make any changes to your defense, you’ll be allowed to so long as no one is currently attacking you. If you are being attacked, you’ll be able to flag your defense to remove itself from the attack queue as soon as the current attack ends. Furthermore, as long as no one is currently sieging your defenses, you can also use the Withdraw feature to pull back all of your prize money and make edits to your decks or keep setup if necessary.

The Best Offense is… Being Offensively Good

For those of you who wish to claim victory by crushing your enemies, I’m going to be honest with you—things are stacked against you. Attackers must win all three games with no Reserves, plus the opponent has access to all the cards from the history of HEX AND equipment. Meanwhile, what do you have?

One Standard legal deck.

Good luck.

However, you aren’t completely defenseless. You also have is the ability to adapt on the fly, identify what your opponent is working with, and make the right plays to outsmart their defenses and win your opponent’s treasure hoard.

Let’s look at what goes down when you decide to go on the offense. First, let’s look at the Attack Queue:

When you choose to attack, you’ll be presented with the ability to search player’s defenses by their name to find specific opponents, including ones you’ve fought in the past. You can also search based on the number of wins accrued to see the players that have been most ruthless at dispatching opponents or find those who are fresh. Finally, you can search based on who has the most money up for grabs. Anyone sitting out there with the largest hoard should know that they will have a giant target on their back.

So, what happens when you find the player you want to attack?

First things first, you’ll have to pay the cost to attack.

The cost to attack your opponent is 40% of their current hoard.

The money from your attack cost will be divided up as follows:

The defender immediately gets 50% of your fee straight to their account, rounded up.

Your defender’s hoard increases by 37.5% of your fee, rounded up. Of course, if you win, this amount will be yours at the end of the day. Otherwise, your opponent’s hoard grows every time they are attacked.

Any amount left over is lost to the fires of war.

To recap, we’ll give you an example of an opponent with a 1000 Gold defense.

Attackers will pay a fee of 400 Gold:

Your opponent will claim 200 of this Gold.

Your opponent’s hoard will increase by 150 Gold (New hoard amount will be 1150).

50 Gold is melted down for the war effort.

Once you’ve paid your war tax and queued against a Siege Defense, two things will happen. First, your opponent’s defense will be removed from the list of available players to attack. Second, you’ll be pulled in to attack your opponent.

When you’re pulled in, you’ll see a short countdown until the first game begins. Then you’ll be greeted with the first of the three champions you’ll have to face. The remaining two will be locked until you can get to that stage of the Siege.

Because your opponent is removed from queue while you are challenging them, we want to ensure that they can still get challengers in a timely manner. Therefore, unlike other PvE encounters, you will be timed in your assault. Each game you will be given a maximum of 20 minutes to win, with a short intermission between each game where you’ll see the next deck unlock and preview which champion you’ll be going up against next.

Once you defeat the final deck, you’ll get the entirety of the hoard’s contents! It’s not easy, but high risk comes with high rewards! And, even if you fail, you can always tweak your deck and attack that player again, or you can move on to the next one.

Start Your (Siege) Engines

So, those are the basics of Siege:

A new way to build PvE decks.

A way to put your Standard decks through other players’ gauntlets.

Attack or Defend to earn rewards for your victories.

And remember, this is just the beginning! There’s more than a few things about this mode that are extremely experimental. I know that our community is filled with some of the most creative deck builders in the world, but we also have some of the most masterfully skilled players as well, so I’m excited to see those two worlds collide in a brand-new way.

We’ll be keeping a close eye to make sure that we make Siege into a format that is well balanced for both attackers and defenders. With such a crazy format, it’s hard to say exactly which side will be favored at the end of the day.

I hope you’re excited to Siege the day and play high-stakes HEX, day or night. Stay tuned to HEXTCG.com for more news on when this feature will be in your hands!

~Ryan Sutherland | HexRysu

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