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Finally played my first free draft last night. I had been putting it off until I'd watched some draft videos and tried to memorize more cards, but then I realized--gently caress it, it's free, just dive in it's the best way to learn. So I first-picked a Polymorph Dingler, and then what seemed to be coming around was cheap fliers so I ended up making that the main strategy, with a little blood backup for more removal and Xarlox the Brood Lord. Ended up with a minor mill subtheme, but wasn't sure if I should try to go all in by snapping up The Fate Rack and playing both of my Twisted Fates, since the deck was more aggro and less control. First match I won pretty handily by just getting the flyers out and then playing my three Mesmerizes at the right times, while also drawing extra cards with things like Stoneclaw Gargoyles, Oracle Song and Peek. Second match I lost 1-2 to a white/blood control deck splashing blue. Took me out once with Soul Marble and the second time by just getting 2/4 flyers out early, killing the right things and then milling me to death with that Fate Rack I passed. So I guess Hex limited is durdley enough for mill after all! I was pretty happy with the one win since I'm still learning the cards and it's a struggle to evaluate the uncommons and rares quickly enough during draft. That and the fact that I picked up a Primal Pack as part of the winnings... Overall, I find the draft interface a little clunky (I don't like the delay once you pick the card), and I find the limited deck builder super-clunky (is there not a way to sort by cost with overlapping cards, like on Magic Online?), but the games themselves are just as engaging as I hoped.
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May 26, 2014 23:23
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moravec posted:So I guess Hex limited is durdley enough for mill after all! I'm not so sure about this. I've never lost to a mill deck, and after the first match I can just bulk my deck up to 50 or so cards and make them a complete non-threat.
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May 26, 2014 23:58
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I just played against a mill deck in the final round of a draft.  It was really bad. I have no idea how it got to the finals. It was using the mill hero and was playing replicators gambit and the escalate mill card. I really don't know how it could have gotten through two other rounds of the tournament.
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May 27, 2014 01:00
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I've lost to a mill deck that had Nin the Shadow as champ, 2+ Twisted Fate, Fate Rack, Spawn of Othuyeg - it was nuts, but I still felt bad because Mill is the most shameful of decks to lose against
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May 27, 2014 01:25
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Everyone drafts sapphire and diamond so hard. I never get to play them because ruby and blood are always wide open. I don't get it, I win my first round about 80% of the time (3 losses first round of 15 drafts), and I'm playing blood more often than not. It can't be that bad. Also if you can get a shin'hare deck going they are incredibly brutal. I won a tournament last night with one, and I beat blue fliers and blue/white control with it, which are usually what I consider the weakness of shin'hare. They don't deal with fliers very well. (Until you pheromones a Blood Cauldron Ritualist then buff it with wild aura.) I agree that mill is terrible and incredibly easy to beat in draft.
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May 27, 2014 02:41
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I think people have picked up on the robots deck, but I had a draft today that I went 3-0 in by riding a lot of non-dwarf blue stuff to victory. Four Thunderhawks, other low-cost fliers, both red and blue buffs. It was awesome.
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May 27, 2014 03:40
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Sigma-X posted:Better lucky than good, I guess. Hacky uploaded a video of this play if you want to see it from his perspective. Skip to around 11:25 to see the replicated briar legion come out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zs6vTlU3nI Edit: Here is the Buccaneer play. Skip to around 16:25. He is able to bounce the replicated one back into his hand and play it again the following turn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGHydrQ0wzw Protip fucked around with this message at 03:55 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 03:44
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moravec posted:Overall, I find the draft interface a little clunky (I don't like the delay once you pick the card) You have to wait for every other player to finish picking their card so... there's not much you can do about this. As far as mill deck viability goes, it seems like when it works it really works. However, I think it's probably the most card dependent deck to try to make while drafting. Even if nobody else is taking mill cards, a lot of times there just aren't enough cards that it is a viable option.
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May 27, 2014 08:13
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katkillad2 posted:You have to wait for every other player to finish picking their card so... there's not much you can do about this. I think he's talking about the delay between when you double click the card/drag it to your pile and when it actually moves, which can be north of 5 seconds at its worst. It is very annoying.
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May 27, 2014 08:23
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So I ended up rolling the Wrathwood Colossus Sleeves 3 seperate times on the wheels of fate which I thought was pretty funny so I went to take a screenshot, only to find my extra copies weren't there. I assumed that later on once they fix this bug they would give people different prizes so I sent a ticket to support and got this reply just now; quote:Thank you for contacting HEX Customer Support. Any duplicate sleeves will be automatically removed from your account as they propose no purpose. There are currently no plan to offer alternative rewards in these situations. If you require any further assistance, or have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me again. I know it's a trivial thing but I feel like maybe this is kind of a poo poo response? Like, obviously I am too close to this situation to make an objective measure of it... Grim fucked around with this message at 10:38 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 10:35
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Speaking of sleeves, they make your deck look really awkward in practice despite being really cool in theory. None of them have borders, so they end up being these weird blocks of stretched colors. The default sleeves have that small gold border around them so they look like a stack of cards. The King tier sleeve is an especially bad case, where it ends up looking like a texture error.
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May 27, 2014 10:58
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Grim posted:I know it's a trivial thing but I feel like maybe this is kind of a poo poo response? Like, obviously I am too close to this situation to make an objective measure of it... Aren't sleeves supposed to be untradeable? I'm not sure what else they'd do in this case.
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May 27, 2014 10:58
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I guess I had hoped for one of the common / uncommon sleeves they have, or some gold so I can roll a chest again, just something to be like "yea that's a bug, sorry about that" Again it's very trivial but I feel like I was rewarded and then had that reward taken away which has a sting to it
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May 27, 2014 11:52
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Grim posted:I guess I had hoped for one of the common / uncommon sleeves they have, or some gold so I can roll a chest again, just something to be like "yea that's a bug, sorry about that"
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May 27, 2014 12:12
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Cory actually posted about it on the official forums.Cory Jones posted:no trading sleeves, the Wheels of Fate will NOT give you sleeves you already have in the future (on the bug list) However, there doesn't seem to be any plan to provide compensation retroactively.
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May 27, 2014 14:55
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That's actually better than I was expecting. Removing untradeable things that you already have from the drop table makes a lot of sense.
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May 27, 2014 15:15
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Did a second draft yesterday afternoon and it did not go nearly as well as my six Murder deck. Draft started with a Living Totem and white was semi-open so I stuck with it. Had was sort of open on my second color, and late in pack 1 I had the choice between Phoenix Guard Trainer (inspire: flight) and Ruby Enchantress (inspire: swiftstrike). I went hard in to Ruby there, and I think looking back that was a mistake. I had what I thought was a pretty decent aggressive Ruby deck in the end, however I was stacked up with x/1s. Savage Raider, Ruby Pyromancer, Wrathseeker and Gem Crazed Berserker made up the majority of my deck. I knew it was a weakness for sure, but not being super familiar with the format I didn't know how big of a problem it would be. The answer: A huge loving problem. I loaded up my 3 Gem Crazed Berserkers with the 'can only be blocked by red / artifacts' and then round 1 was against a Diamond/Sapphire robots deck. So he's just making GBS threads out these robots that shut it down. Then he starts playing Clear Sky Stormcallers. It was an absolute disaster. He locked me out of both games on turn 3. I had a couple repels and a couple of burns but just couldn't draw in to them. Also, the Clear Sky Stormcaller combos super well with the wind Whisperer. I missed an onboard trick of 2x Stormcaller + Whisperer killing my Living Totem when I played it without having resources up to pump once. That really ruined my day. So, obviously small sample size but my deck full of X/1 just did not fare very well at all. The draft went sideways pretty early and I didn't expect to go very far, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. On that note, does Hex record your draft in any way? MTGO spit out draft replay files that were really helpful for getting better in Magic. Getting input from goons using raredraft.com was super helpful in improving my game and having people point out signals you may have missed or whatever under the time pressure.
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May 27, 2014 17:29
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Has anyone noticed that if you use Monkey of the Nine Tails' ability on a gemmed troop it keeps the gem effect? I can't figure out whether that's a bug or not. On the one hand reverting the troop doesn't seem like it should negate the gem, but on the other hand it loses the socket when it transforms so shouldn't it lose the effect? Now I wonder if using it on a troop with a gem effect that fires as it comes into play would make the effect fire again.Vincent Valentine posted:Speaking of sleeves, they make your deck look really awkward in practice despite being really cool in theory. I actually think it looks really neat  MerrMan posted:So, obviously small sample size but my deck full of X/1 just did not fare very well at all. The draft went sideways pretty early and I didn't expect to go very far, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. There are definitely a lot of answers to X/1 creatures, but it sounds like you lucked into the nightmare opponent. Berserkers with the evasion gem are really solid. The Moon Monster fucked around with this message at 22:00 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 21:53
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MerrMan posted:So, obviously small sample size but my deck full of X/1 just did not fare very well at all. The draft went sideways pretty early and I didn't expect to go very far, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. Ruby Aura is super important in mono ruby decks, they pretty much force your opponent to deal with your creature out of combat. If you are also playing Diamond strongly consider making room for multiple Radiant Armors and Diamond Auras, if you deck is aggressive enough Bravery might even be good. The first two will pretty much always turn "Lets trade" into "Your guy is dead and I have a monster", I wouldn't play guys like the 1/1 Rage 2 without them.
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May 27, 2014 23:12
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Slifter posted:Ruby Aura is super important in mono ruby decks, they pretty much force your opponent to deal with your creature out of combat. If you are also playing Diamond strongly consider making room for multiple Radiant Armors and Diamond Auras, if you deck is aggressive enough Bravery might even be good. The first two will pretty much always turn "Lets trade" into "Your guy is dead and I have a monster", I wouldn't play guys like the 1/1 Rage 2 without them. Can't stress this enough. Cards like Sapphire Aura and Incite Fury can be pretty rad in the right circumstance, but Ruby Aura is almost always a card that doesn't need a specific circumstance to simply be good/swing the board state. If I'm even remotely into Ruby, I will prioritize these bad boys. In fact, some goons may recall me taking down a draft last week where I was playing Wild/Ruby (big W, teeny weenie little R) where I thought after getting a Ruby Pyromancer I was super definitely for sure playing Ruby. 2 packs later I was playing triple Ruby Aura + Pyromancer as my only Ruby cards (although to be fair I had a Burn in the board). Ruby Aura is so good it doesn't even matter if you're mono ruby. Here's the flow chart for when to Ruby Aura: 1. Are you playing Ruby as one of your colors? If yes, continue. If no, you might be doing it wrong. (Like Blood Ruby is often underdrafted, I've found). 2. Does your strategy to win involve playing mans and turning them sideways? If yes, continue. If no, you are definitely doing it wrong. 3. We have now concluded that you are playing Ruby and plan to attack your opponents' life totals to win. Play Ruby Aura. Simple, really. On the flip side, if you're playing Ruby and didn't get Auras or a plethora of Burns, I'm sorry but your opponents are probably going to poo poo down your neck. At the very least you are going to have a Real Bad TimeTM. P.S. I'm back from my weekend vacation and might do some drafting later tonight if I can manage to pull myself away from Watch Dogs.
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May 27, 2014 23:38
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Mikujin posted:Can't stress this enough. Cards like Sapphire Aura and Incite Fury can be pretty rad in the right circumstance, but Ruby Aura is almost always a card that doesn't need a specific circumstance to simply be good/swing the board state. If I'm even remotely into Ruby, I will prioritize these bad boys. That's... huh. Enlightening. I did not evaluate the card anywhere near that power level. I think the word Aura to me just has the Magic taint on it where the card needs to be loving bonkers or insane value to see play at all. Them being Quick Actions is probably the thing I overlooked the most, because adding Flash to an Aura in Magic made it miles better. Thanks for the evaluation on that one.
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May 27, 2014 23:50
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MerrMan posted:That's... huh. Enlightening. I did not evaluate the card anywhere near that power level. I think the word Aura to me just has the Magic taint on it where the card needs to be loving bonkers or insane value to see play at all. Them being Quick Actions is probably the thing I overlooked the most, because adding Flash to an Aura in Magic made it miles better. Keep in mind that all action cards that do not end at end of turn in HEX are, in MTG terms, all enchantments with Flash. Except they go one step further by becoming permanently encoded on the card. Ruby Aura up your Arena Brawler on T3 and you now have a 4/1 Swiftstrike (First Strike). Get Time Rippled or Buccaneered? Who cares, next turn you have a 3 drop that's a 4/1 with Swiftstrike. Unlike MTG, where Auras are generally mediocre because removal of any kind guarantees a 1-for-1 (and often a 2 for 1) in addition to a loss of tempo, auras in HEX only get lumped in that same scenario if the removal is permanent and there's no way for a player to recover the card (ie. Raise Dead effects). This is part of the reason Time Ripple and Buccaneer increase casting costs after the bounce, because they need to inflict more tempo 'damage' on card since it may already be ULTRA SUPER MEGA VOLTRON and all you're doing is keeping it off the board for a turn. It's almost like MTG's Hubris with an additional clause saying "When that creature enters the battlefield, return it to the battlefield with all auras previously attached to it" (neverminding the abysmal templating).
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May 28, 2014 00:00
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Ruby Aura is pretty good and I'll pretty much always play the first two I find, though I'll side them out against removal-heavy opponents. I wouldn't take it too highly though--having enough creatures is really important in this format, so while I'd take it over mediocre creatures, I'd basically never take it over a good creature.
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May 28, 2014 00:02
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Yeah, permanence adds a ton of value to the actions/quick actions that modify creatures. Also, keep in mind that all of the ___ Aura cards are quick actions, which means you can play them as combat tricks. The effects being permanent make them very good cards to play. I've actually avoided Ruby Aura just because when I draft Ruby it's to get the "fear" deck with lots of unblockable guys, but I've used all the other auras many times. Sapphire is especially nice because you can usually put a 2/2 on the ground into the air to block their 3 drop flier, killing it, and then getting yourself a flier to beat with. Call to the Grave or whatever the "return a troop to your hand" card is also becomes nicer with permanence, as it lets you get back your guy that you've invested in. The more I play Hex the more it feels different than Magic - the digital-only adds a lot of space around the edges for differentiation.
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May 28, 2014 00:11
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My favorite aura is Blood and after that probably Diamond. The problem with Ruby Aura in draft is that it doesn't give a defensive bonus and most of the common removal in draft dings for one or two points, so the +1 and +2 defense from blood and diamond add a lot. I still draft the Ruby Auras but I don't zero in on them like I do blood.
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May 28, 2014 00:22
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The problem with Diamond aura is that it's so damned expensive. I expect a 5-cost card to be pretty game changing. If the troop you're casting it on gets bounced or killed, it's a pretty huge blowout.
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May 28, 2014 01:04
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Thoom posted:The problem with Diamond aura is that it's so damned expensive. I expect a 5-cost card to be pretty game changing. If the troop you're casting it on gets bounced or killed, it's a pretty huge blowout. Echoing this. I love Ruby Aura because it's cheap and effective at establishing board control early; Blood Aura and Sapphire Aura can both put you ahead on board when things are even; Wild Aura helps you punch through those last few points of damage on a stalled board. Diamond Aura, however, doesn't guarantee any amount of damage throughput, and only adds versatility (albeit a lot) to your dudes. It is, sadly, almost never play, and quite often beat because it's just so slow for what it does.
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May 28, 2014 01:16
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IMO, Ruby Aura is #1.5 in the list of best Auras, with Blood Aura being the top by a hair. Ruby Aura makes creatures into crazy good attackers and (especially) defenders. It's really, really hard to deal with a 4 power swiftstrike creature without using actual removal on it, and if they don't have an answer to it immediately you can almost always either get in a big chunk of damage (if you're winning) or stabilize the board state (if you're losing) with it. Diamond Aura is probably the worst just because it's so bloody expensive. Honestly I think it's overcosted by 1; I don't think Steadfast is more valuable than Crush (which Wild Aura gives), especially since Crush as a combat trick can often be used to get through 4+ damage directly and unexpectedly to the opponent. That isn't to say Diamond Aura is bad, but generally I prefer either an actual creature or some fairly hard removal (like Polymorph or Burn to the Ground) as my 5 drop. That said, Diamond Aura on Droo's Walker is a beatdown. Especially in a Dimmid deck.
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May 28, 2014 02:43
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I think I might not be drafting as much until they push an update to the beta to address some issues with reconnecting. Supposedly they made this possible, but while I've been able to reconnect a time or two, it's far from foolproof. It'll put me back in the current game but then not let me sideboard and forfeit the match for me, or it will put me back in the tournament after the first disconnect but not the second. They've been very good about reimbursement so far but that doesn't make it not a hassle to do it every time. Really, one problem is just that as far as I can tell one can't manually click back to the tournament, you have to trust that the client will put you there. MTGO (prior to the current beta version) had a setup that was good in this respect, in that when you logged back in your games, tournaments, etc. reappeared as tabs and you could get back to them that way. Is there a way to get that functionality that I'm not seeing here?
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May 28, 2014 03:09
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You can rejoin the tournament lobby just by finding the lobby corresponding to your tournament number then clicking the Queue button. The one time I disconnected from a tournament that didn't help me though.
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May 28, 2014 03:21
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Mikujin posted:Keep in mind that all action cards that do not end at end of turn in HEX are, in MTG terms, all enchantments with Flash. Except they go one step further by becoming permanently encoded on the card.  I might have just taken this advice a little to heart (maybe too much)
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May 28, 2014 04:46
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Stormgale posted:
Goreseeker is gonna be a long-shot since you're only running 16 resources. If you've got better/cheaper gas in the board I'd bring it in. Beyond that, 8 spells is a lot to have for an aggro deck. 
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May 28, 2014 04:48
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 I rode Gralk all the way to the finals.  Sadly this guy's DOUBLE Air Superiority(none of which I saw in draft) got me in game 3.
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May 28, 2014 07:32
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Yesterday I drafted some Call the grave's, and those cards are fun. Especially when paired with Darkspire Priestress. Play the priestress, attack with it, it'll probably get killed. Boom, 3 damage to your opponent, or put another Priestress in your hand. Get it out of your graveyard, rinse and repeat. I actually drafted a nice mono-blood deck yesterday, but got beaten by some artifact deck. Turns out murder can't deal with artifacts 
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May 28, 2014 07:33
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Patch notes are up: https://hextcg.com/patch-notes-v0-9-1-006/ Nothing to get overly excited about, unless you were waiting for Swiss drafts.
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May 28, 2014 12:53
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Another interesting take on the lawsuit, this time from a former WotC employee and intellectual property lawyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6_5TcqjWA
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May 28, 2014 14:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:*snip*
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May 28, 2014 14:22
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Any chance of a quick synopsis? I'm at work and can't watch it until later.
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May 28, 2014 14:24
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Go RV! posted:Any chance of a quick synopsis? I'm at work and can't watch it until later. Basically he agrees with the consensus -- the trademark / trade dress claims are really weak, the copyright claims aren't worth much because they rely on things that aren't copyrightable (five-point magic systems, four of a kind in card decks, card decks with approximately 52 cards). The patent claims are a maybe but wizard's patent is really, really broad and he says he hopes a court would read it narrowly because otherwise it would shut down the entire TCG industry. His closing argument is basically that this is all happening because the Magic Online client is really bad, and that all Wizards is going to achieve with this lawsuit is, at best, to waste money taking out one competitor while other competitors (Solforge, Hearthstone, etc) continue to take market share. He also looks briefly at some compared cards and explains why (for example) Wrath of Zakiir and Eye of Creation aren't infringing on the copyright of Genesis Wave and Form of a Dragon. I think the real value in this particular video is the guy hasn't played Hex at all really, and he has a clear knowledge of the difference between copyright, trade dress, and patent, so the video does a good job of explaining why the lawsuit is bullshit to someone who's only familiar with MTG --i.e., you can't copyright having four of a kind in a card deck. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 14:37 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 14:31
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Go RV! posted:Any chance of a quick synopsis? I'm at work and can't watch it until later. He hasn't said anything new. He agrees that the copyright claims are probably the strongest claims but the whole thing is conflated. That said, it's another great break down for the layman. It's a good video and you should watch it when you get a chance.
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May 28, 2014 14:40
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