Hex: Shards of Fate TCG - Set 7: Frostheart 6/29/17

The campaign is well done and very enjoyable so far. I just beat the second dungeon (bleak citadel). I tried the gnome quest for about 2 hours last night, but using an orc deck, I have almost no chance since as soon as a single of those worms pop up that deal 1 damage to all enemies, it entirely wipes out my entire force. Sigh at every orc having 1 health. Orcs do rape most content though, since enemy decks (so far) lack any real spell removal, so orcs with rage and swiftstrike and perma steadfast (cleric talent) are insane for board control. I tried the killipede fight a few times also, but same issue as the worms, a permanent -1/-1 aura means almost my entire deck can't even be played since my army all starts with 0 health. Maybe once I level more and get the cleric talent to give my units all +1 health. Pirana battle was another fight I had absolutely no chance to beat. 5 units with rage spawning and attacking every round? Yeah, ok... That fight probably needs some kind of gimmick deck with mass aoe or something, idk, I'll come back to it later once the main campaign quest is done.

OUAriakas_sl said:

Haha. I don't think I can beat that bitch with 0 gnomes in my deck.

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Amen to that, that shit is like a heroic in Hearthstone. I hope there is a badass reward for beating her.

Sinzar, the pirahna fight can be beaten with a cheap deck if you have access to diamond shard in your class. Go mono white, all cheap first striking stuff. Since he has to attack every round, all you need is 4 cheap first strikers out and you win from there. To stay alive that long, mulligan until you have the 2 stinging ambush (think that is the name, 1 mana, 1 damage to all attackers) in your opening hand and it is game over for him.

This game is really good. It was clunky as hell during beta and it's really come together. Love the PvE a ton, and regret not being a kickstarter backer, missed the deadline by a day!

The writing is a bit cliche, like a somewhat tacky fantasy novel, but it's charming and I prefer it immensely over the 12 year old silliness of Hearthstone.

I've just ended up with a Cleric deck which trivialized the whole PvE thing.

Been playing this lately, the pve is a lot of fun.

To me mage class atm is a distant 3rd, but this seems to not have the combos like mtg which seems what the class is suited for.

The affinity class talents are way OP for warrior and cleric, and I would rank them as this:

Warrior---------->Cleric------------------------------------> mage

Then again we have no idea what the next tiers look like and serious pve stuff will be like either. The necrotic mage spell to take a top card seems like it could be broken in pve if the game has crazy cards only usable in enemy decks.

There's some extremely broken combos you can pull off with the right cards, and mage is definitely the class to do a combo deck. Problem is, after the first third or so of the campaign, the enemy decks start to get a lot more aggressive, and the low life total of mages means you can easily die by turn 3-4 with a slow draw. Another problem with mage is that a lot of the special powers of the bosses in dungeons will seriously outvalue you in a drawn out game, so you have to win or at least lock down the board fast.

I like warrior for rush decks, but overall I'm a huge fan of cleric. Building an affinity deck of clerics with their lifedrain talent means you can outlast almost any enemy. I'm also seriously addicted to the perma steadfast talent of clerics, and not having it makes me sad any time I play a different class. Then there's the fact that if you get divine altar in your opening hand, it's basically auto-win.

The PvE patch has been amazing, and I can't wait for them to add more content and increase the level cap.

I just find that the warrior affinity to gain a charge when you play a warrior is so fucking broken beyond belief.

I have a deck of basically the MtG version of Boros Aggro with red/white and its just stupid with decent cards. The human warrior charge abiilty giving all your troops +1+1 if you use it on their champion is insane.

The Arena Regular orc that costs 2 and does 1 dmg to opponent when you gain a charge is so good. If you have the helm equip, she does 2 dmg to opponent when you use your charge power. The berserker ability that adds to battle damage just increases it even more.

I have been testing different races to see which can break the warrior affinity the most, and even though others do more damage, imho it might just be shin'hare because of the -1 cost to use the charge power. The warrior talent concussive strikes when you battle opposing champ they discard a card at random? Holy god, in a shinhare wild/blood setup you can practically be using your battle every turn with a warrior deck. Shinhare racial reduces battle cost by 1, then agility talent by 1, so its a cost of 3. 3 charges = lose a card at random + take 4 damage to the face (will be more when you can unlock berserking). You can pretty much win turn 1 if you take one of their resources via the talent that gives you 2 charges to start the game with for -7 health. 1 drop warrior = 3 charges, battle, lose card at random. Adding cards to make them discard like arachophobia and inquisition just wrecks control, and you still have the mountain god orcs to do crazy damage with early.

Anyways, rambling some, but this is a blast cant wait to see how this game shapes up more for pve

Genjiro_sl said:

I have been testing different races to see which can break the warrior affinity the most, and even though others do more damage, imho it might just be shin'hare because of the -1 cost to use the charge power. The warrior talent concussive strikes when you battle opposing champ they discard a card at random? Holy god, in a shinhare wild/blood setup you can practically be using your battle every turn with a warrior deck. Shinhare racial reduces battle cost by 1, then agility talent by 1, so its a cost of 3. 3 charges = lose a card at random + take 4 damage to the face (will be more when you can unlock berserking). You can pretty much win turn 1 if you take one of their resources via the talent that gives you 2 charges to start the game with for -7 health. 1 drop warrior = 3 charges, battle, lose card at random. Adding cards to make them discard like arachophobia and inquisition just wrecks control, and you still have the mountain god orcs to do crazy damage with early.

Anyways, rambling some, but this is a blast cant wait to see how this game shapes up more for pve

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The biggest abuse of warrior affinity is for dwarf warriors - battling a champion stuns them, meaning they get no resources back the next turn. It also prevents them from playing any new shards, which might be a bug, hasn't been confirmed. Currently though, get some good charge generation going and stunlock them to death ;p

Mages are probably going to go the D&D path of being ass at low level but crazy powered at high level. Currently they have no access to their specializations and almost no spells.

attog_sl said:

Amen to that, that shit is like a heroic in Hearthstone. I hope there is a badass reward for beating her.

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There is ;p

velk_sl said:

The biggest abuse of warrior affinity is for dwarf warriors - battling a champion stuns them, meaning they get no resources back the next turn. It also prevents them from playing any new shards, which might be a bug, hasn't been confirmed. Currently though, get some good charge generation going and stunlock them to death ;p

Mages are probably going to go the D&D path of being ass at low level but crazy powered at high level. Currently they have no access to their specializations and almost no spells.

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Yea that sounds like a bug but fun to abuse lol, one of the only races I havent messed with for warriors. Need more char slots

Adaptatron with Equipment pretty much solos her.

If you want an almost sure win against hydra queen, make a deck with 1 skittering skarn, at least 1 hunger of the mountain god, and 58 blood shards. Use both equipments for the mountain god, and restart the battle until mountain god is in your opening hand and you get to play first. Each round activate mountain gods ability (from equipment) and attack. Never play anything the whole game except the 2 shards to play mountain god and the orc itself. You should win before her worms pop up from underground. Slight variance if the queen decides to play 1 or 2 early inferno's and rng fucks you.

You can use this same strat to bring all 60 gnomes across at once with a single fight, though a huge deck makes getting mountain god in the opening hand kind of a pain. Mountain god is a guaranteed quest reward for the orc race when you reach the first city. Also may be close or even not possible to use this trick with a 14 life total as a mage.

Kuro_sl said:

Adaptatron with Equipment pretty much solos her.

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That's one way you can do it, still needs some luck given you have to play at least 5 shards which means you can get screwed by the flamethrowers.

I used a scourgecrag witch on my warrior (sucks up Queen's resources and uses then to buff herself to super strength), and a single righteous paladin on my cleric (clerics are OP)

I will probably try to use hunger of the mountain god on my spider cleric.

Righteous Paladin with equip does too. I ended up with something like a 35/35 paladin (has lifedrain from clr talent + equip makes him gain you as much life as he is dealt) where she couldnt attack with anything without giving me absurd amounts of life while she killed herself with her own infernos.

Just tried this out, pretty fucking dope. Wish it was on android.

Velk if you want to post a decklist for that stunlock dwarf warrior deck I'll give it a try.

Does every race get a different starting rare for getting out of the beginner area?

attog_sl said:

Velk if you want to post a decklist for that stunlock dwarf warrior deck I'll give it a try.

Does every race get a different starting rare for getting out of the beginner area?

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Yeah, every race has three unique cards they get from quests in the adventure zone. The first for completing the tutorial dungeon, the second for reaching the main ardent/underworld city, the third for defeating the dryad and crossing the second bridge. They vary in effectiveness, a few standouts from memory are:
Orc - Hunger of the Mountain God
Vennen - Zilth, Phenteo's Gift and Nazhk Scout
Coyotle - Prophet of the Sun

For dwarf warrior, I'm still experimenting with different decks - a relatively basic one for a starting dwarf warrior could be :
20 Ruby Shards
4 Crackling Vortex
3 Arena Regular ( with Helm )
3 Reactor Bot
2 Lightning Elemental ( with Flail )
2 War Machinist ( with Robes )
3 Charge Bots
1 Adaptatron
3 Crackling Bolt
2 Brutal Commander ( Gloves and Trinket )
1 Highlands Blackbelt
2 Deployment Orders ( Boots )

For the more flexible bits where you can adjust mix to taste
Savage Raider/Ridge Raider ( These guys would be 3 each, but for some reason they are both rangers, not warriors ;p )
Psychotic Anarchist ( fast, good damage, good card draw - opponent drawing doesn't help him if he can't play them )
Lord Alexander ( Relatively solid body warrior, his inspire isn't worth much though )
Inductocopter Bot ( More charges, activates war machinist )
Burn
Crushing Blow ( for both of these when you actually let your opponent have a turn, he's usually below curve so you can kill his blockers pretty easily.


I'd go Fury and Warrior Affinity at level 2, Agility at level 3, then go for what looks interesting from there. Berserking helps a lot given your troops are mostly weenies, you have a good lot of removal and you are going to be doing stuff more often than your opponent. Concussive Blows is pretty handy because you will always be using Battle on the opposing champion, about the only thing that's not going to be all that useful is Parry, as you'd have to be desperate for you to battle a troop.

I had most of the stuff for that dwarf deck, so I bought the other stuff on the list (except gladiator helm, too pricey for my budget) and made this deck to try it out. Holy shit it's crazy, wins by turn 3-4 on average and opponent barely even gets a turn. Is it viable in the later campaign? Because for the first few levels I ran it, it just rolls over everything.

Yea anything that can run orcs in it is as warrior is great. Orc warrior is savage as well since you can run Hunger guys plus all the normal stuff, and your battles do like 6 damage I think when you have everything iirc.

The Vennen rewards are all really really good.