Friday Update – Building Blocks

Welcome to a round up of the week. The new Merry Melee is live, we have Bash and Clash updates, and more:

Dev Developments

Our team has been hard at work to bring you the latest updates and fixes to our game. Yesterday we saw a patch that fixed several bugs as well as introduced a number of updates to our champions. R&D shared their thoughts on these champion changes here, but we are excited to see what you guys make of them. Tweaks like these can open up all new strategies in both limited and constructed. Exciting!

Merry Melee

Another exciting development is the introduction of our new Merry Melee series! Designed to bring you wacky, fun formats across the month that you can enjoy at your own pace while they are live, our first Merry Melee queue (Corinth vs Corinth) is live right now! Corinth vs Corinth is a mode that is unlike any other that we’ve released so far in HEX.

In this mode you don’t select a deck and you don’t select a champion. Instead, you are given a predetermined deck of 20 resources (4 copies of each standard shard – [BLOOD] [WILD] [DIAMOND] [RUBY] [SAPPHIRE] ), and the champion Corinth the Iconoclast.

Shifted Paradigm – Skip your draw phase. At the end of your turn, put your crypt and hand into your deck, then draw four cards.

You will then use her powers to create and choose cards—essentially building your deck on the fly. Only careful choices, a bit of luck, and quick thinking will grant victory over your opponents.

You can read all about Corinth vs Corinth here, but perhaps the best way to learn is to experience it for yourself. Gauntlet queues for this exciting new mode will be available until Monday 5/7 at 10am Pacific, so jump right in and build yourself some wacky wins! Remember, 10 victories will also grant you the exclusive Corinth the Iconoclast animated sleeve, so don’t delay! Melee today.

It’s Your Card

Speaking of beautiful art, you are almost out of time to choose an artist to bring our community designed card to life. The vote will run until May 1st, so be sure to check it out before it ends. And as always, the team will also be discussing the card as you guys design it on our regular dev streams (which run from 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM Pacific Time every other Wednesday). Come join the fun!

Noble Pursuits

Starting today, NOBLELixil will be moving over to help out our friends at 80Arcade full time. She will be missed, but don’t despair! A new knight in shining armor has risen to take her place. Please welcome a man who needs no introduction, NOBLEKingGabriel!

This king among men has been a member of our community since the beginning. He has spent his time tirelessly helping out old and new players alike, both in chat and through social media. We are thrilled to have him join the team in a more official capacity. Please give him a warm welcome, and don’t hesitate to give him a poke if you have questions, client problems, or other dragons to slay.

VIP Weekend

This weekend is your last chance to nab our Light the Votives and Cult of the Nameless City AAs. The format this month is Constructed. Tournament times are as follows:



Start times listed in US Pacific below:

Friday: 10:00 AM, 6:00 PM

Saturday: 1:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 6:00 PM

Sunday: 1:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 6:00 PM

Start times listed in US Eastern below:

Friday: 1:00 PM, 9:00 PM

Saturday: 4:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 9:00 PM

Sunday: 4:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 9:00 PM

Start times listed in Central European Time below:

Friday: 19:00

Saturday: 03:00, 10:00, 19:00

Sunday: 03:00, 10:00, 19:00

Monday: 03:00

We have run into a potential issue with cash prize payouts on a global scale. We are working on it, but to be on the safe side for now, we are switching out future tournaments starting May 5th to platinum payouts. Note that the Bash and Clash this weekend, as well as the Cosmic Crown Showdown on May 12th-13th, will still payout in cash. As we make these adjustments, we felt it was a good time to look at these tournaments as a whole and see how we could improve them based on player feedback.

We have been listening to the community regarding large-scale tournaments, and one constant piece of feedback we’ve received is that they can be hard for you to attend. Extended, multi-hour tournaments don’t fit as well as they used to into everyone’s lives. As such, we are experimenting with a shorter, 4-round capped tournament structure moving forward.

We will have both a Bash and a Clash on Saturday and Sunday to compensate so those who do want to HEX all day can, but for those who don’t, they can still attend in a more bitesized fashion. We will also be experimenting with different tournament times to accommodate players across the globe.

Here is the full prizing and schedule breakdown:

Schedule:

Saturdays at 8am PT – Bash

Saturdays at 4pm PT – Clash

Sundays at 8am PT – Clash

Sundays at 4pm PT – Bash

Bash:

Format: Standard Constructed

Cost: 700 Platinum

Length: 4 rounds, swiss pairings

Match: Best of three

Prizes:

1-0 Wins – n/a

2 Wins – 5 current set booster packs, AAA card

3 Wins – 12 current set booster packs, AAA card, AAA sleeve

4 Wins – 10,000 platinum, AAA card, AAA sleeve, Battleboard

Clash:

Format: Standard Sealed

Cost: 1500 Platinum (or packs + 300 Platinum entry fee)

Length: 4 rounds, swiss pairings

Match: Best of three

Prizes:

1-0 Wins – n/a

2 Wins – 5 current set booster packs, AAA card

3 Wins – 12 current set booster packs, AAA card, AAA sleeve

4 Wins – 10,000 platinum, AAA card, AAA sleeve, Battleboard

Door prizes will still be granted to a few lucky participants. We will be giving out a total of 2 random Battleboards to players without 4 wins, 4 random AAA sleeves to players without 3 wins, and 4 random AAA cards to those favored by Kismet.

We hope you enjoy this new Bash & Clash structure. We feel it will be more convenient and open up the possibility for more of you to attend and enjoy these kinds of events. We are listening closely to your feedback, so please be sure to let us know what you think in the forums below.

See you in the Battlegrounds~

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