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

I tried adding you as a friend in game, character name is badaxe.

I've only been loosely following this game, but I noticed they're posting info about the new adventure zone update coming "soon". The PvE in this game is really fun, so I'm looking forward to it. New class (Ranger), mercenary system, changes to dungeon lives, some talent re-balancing, etc. Overall it looks good, can't wait!

Pretty big patch updates these last few weeks. They added a new class, upped the level cap to 15, and introduced 4 new dungeons and a leveling map. They're also finally taking advantage of their game being digital to try to undercut some of the cancer that is land-based mana systems; your opening hand is now curated such that the extreme outlier hands, Land VS Spell Composition, don't happen. So if you've got 24-26 shards in your deck, you should be seeing a bunch of 3-4 shard opening hands, a few 2 or 5 shard openers, extremely rare 1 shard or 6 shard, and no 0 or 7. Last set changed the Gems, so the socketed cards are a bit less cancer than they were. When the next set comes out in a few months Set 1 and Set 2 will rotate out, which'll be nice for new players, since set one was roughly the size of the moon (although it will all still be legal in PVE, and in their open format).

I've been playing through the second campaign map, and it's been fun. I use a shin'hare cleric deck with a bunch of lifedrain synergy and clerics/paladins. It's been crushing it so far, but I recently got to the boat stuff, and hit a brick wall. When on the boat, your class talents are disabled, and lifedrain doesn't work, so as you can imagine, my entire deck strategy is fucked.

Going to have to rebuild an entire deck for the boat I guess. Maybe play with some of the mercenary stuff (I've been ignoring them).

Fuck do I hate the interface in this game. I got to the ship part you are talking about, it tells me I have to build a separate deck for the ship encounters, which is fine, my deck is based on lifegain which is now useless as you mentioned. However when I build the new deck, it overwrites my normal encounter deck and leaves my ship deck the same.

I made the same mistake.... turns out you have to hit the edit deck button on the ship's talent screen window, which builds a custom deck specifically for the ship. Seems the ship decks can't use equipment either, which makes it even more of a challenge. I managed to clear most of the ocean battles on the ship using a plant synergy deck, but still haven't defeated old man of the sea, or storm of the century. They're optional fights, so I'll probably come back to them later after the rest of the campaign is finished, maybe with some new pve cards.

Yeah I got it figured out, just sad they always fuck up the small stuff. Fun game though. And you can use equipment on the ship, the interface is just bugged and you can't see it. Great QA.

Finished off act 2 campaign with my budget shin'hare cleric (no rares except quest rewards). Final dungeon seemed a lot easier than last zone of act 1, and I was able to clear the entire dungeon with a flawless win streak. Also, with the info that equipment on ships actually works, I made the classic briar legion / frigid buffallo deck for my boat and was able to clear out all of the ocean battles, including all of the win streak quests, except for old man of the sea. I have no idea how to kill him. Same for the post-game epic battles (gallow zombies etc). Going to have to try to think of some out of the box strats for those two fights.

Here's the shin'hare cleric I cleared the campaign with (finished at lvl 13, usual talents, lifedrain, altars, etc):

and my ship deck, with talents: crew 2/3, hull 0/3, banner 2/3, cannon 3/3:
Both of my decks are super budget, and could be made with the gold earned through the campaign itself.

That looks similar to mine. Ethereal Healer with equipment and Hunger of the Mountain God with equipment are both so crazy.

After trying out some various strategies, I found a way to beat the ultra unfair Old Man of the Sea encounter. Since he's completely ridiculous, I had to get down on his level, by dueling him until I got the perfect opening hand. Honestly, your deck doesn't even matter, because your troops are worthless, and within 2 or so turns, he's made you discard your entire hand. The way to win? An opening hand with 2x phenteo's gift with full equipment, and the captains parrot talent.

You cast Phenteo's gift turn 1, which the parrot duplicates, then you tap the parrot and cast the other one. That's 9 terrorantula's infesting his deck on turn 1. Then, pray for a whole lot of luck that he draws one in the first turn or two, which lets you auto kill some of his troops, and sends all of the Phenteo's gifts back to your hand. Then you re-cast them all again, which snowballs rapidly where his deck becomes like 80+ terrorantulas, and he's drawing 1-3 every round, which is wiping out his units and giving you way more units than he can disable with his stupid hero power.

Even with the above and a perfect draw, it can go wrong if he forces you to discard your phenteo's gifts before you can play them, because them he steals them and uses them on you, and your strategy backfires horribly. Reward for beating him is a copy of his card, which seems fun, though kind of slow. Not sure it's worth trying to build a deck around it.

There's a 200,000 Platinum prize open-entry tournament for the game on the 17th. Obviously the correct way forward is to buy a random PVP deck and try to spike that.

Sinzar said:

After trying out some various strategies, I found a way to beat the ultra unfair Old Man of the Sea encounter. Since he's completely ridiculous, I had to get down on his level, by dueling him until I got the perfect opening hand. Honestly, your deck doesn't even matter, because your troops are worthless, and within 2 or so turns, he's made you discard your entire hand. The way to win? An opening hand with 2x phenteo's gift with full equipment, and the captains parrot talent.

You cast Phenteo's gift turn 1, which the parrot duplicates, then you tap the parrot and cast the other one. That's 9 terrorantula's infesting his deck on turn 1. Then, pray for a whole lot of luck that he draws one in the first turn or two, which lets you auto kill some of his troops, and sends all of the Phenteo's gifts back to your hand. Then you re-cast them all again, which snowballs rapidly where his deck becomes like 80+ terrorantulas, and he's drawing 1-3 every round, which is wiping out his units and giving you way more units than he can disable with his stupid hero power.

Even with the above and a perfect draw, it can go wrong if he forces you to discard your phenteo's gifts before you can play them, because them he steals them and uses them on you, and your strategy backfires horribly. Reward for beating him is a copy of his card, which seems fun, though kind of slow. Not sure it's worth trying to build a deck around it.

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I played through the entire campaign using a black/green shinhare deck so I just modified it by adding 2 rare cards and it made the fight pretty easy. Green rare named Constantina or something like that, she makes is so your opponent cannot tap your cards. Black rare called Herofall, kills opponent creature and removes all copies of it from their deck. That card in particular just destroys a lot of the opponent decks.

There's about 10 extra fights after you finish AZ2 campaign which are crazy hard, and some of them reward unique cards. I just finished up the last of the bonus battles, so now I'm 100% complete the campaign. I did it with a Vennen Ranger, with talents to boost the pet and have it start already in play. This was my deck: General idea is to put a cloudwalk (w/ equipment) on the ranger pet on turn 1 or 2 (the vennen pet has the unblockable trait), then you can get a Saarthu or Dream Eagle in play on turn 2 or 3, which is pretty much game over for most enemies. Rest of the deck is mostly stall and discard in case you don't get an early flyer out. Phenteo's gifts and Hunger of the Mountain God's give the deck the power for longer games if it comes to that, and the ranger pet is constantly growing by +2/2 from the hero power.

Some of the extra battles needed a custom deck though. I had to buy the Feste merc on the auction house to beat Mad Aram (he mills you for 5-15 cards every round, but Feste gives you back your graveyard for just 1 mana, infinite uses). Gallows Ghasts just needed a hunger of the mountain god in the opening hand + ranger pet to burst him to dead in a few turns. The cyclops, gobbler things, and that fire demon were all shut down by a turn 2 Saarthu stealing their cards. The succubus encounter was by far the hardest (for me). I had to tweak the deck, then duel her constantly until getting an opening hand of arcane shield, adaptatron, and an acorn. I actually used the acorn (they only cost ~600 gold), and with a turn 1 arcane shield, lifedrain (from a shifted adaptron), and some boosts from pet toy + hero power, the ranger pet was boosted to 7/7 with lifedrain and spellshield on turn 1 (immune to being stolen by her hero power), then every turn after that I refused her kiss (meant I couldn't play anything at all), but the 7 damage per round from ranger pet killed her in 6 turns, and the lifesteal kept me alive until then (barely, I won with 3 health remaining).

I really enjoyed this latest adventure zone, especially some of the harder encounters. Now let's hope it's not another year before the next PvE update.

AZ2 is so physically big with tons of unused areas, i hope they hot drop new fights and dungeons into it to keep us amused.

I REALLY liked the hard fights up in the mountains. I'm running through it on elf warrior plant deck. ramp up fast, drop splinterslams and other chubby plants then duplicate them forever to win.

I had to use hawkor for the red necrotic that nukes the shit out of you constantly. that merc is crazy fast. I used count dravian with a plant/jump out of the graveyard deck vs mad aram.

I haven't don all the sea encounters yet, but am done on land. elf warrior is pretty crazy though. turn 2 titania majesties like clockwork. or turn one genesis pool nyads and then shit all your land out in 2 rounds. Titania's + warrior gem of "gain rage equal to offence" ends fights fast.

My venn cleric was my "main" i was playing in AZ1, but i wans't as impressed by the T2 talents and wanted to take warrior for a spin.

Anyone interested in buying my Grand King account? I never really got into playing in the beta, and then just kind of forgot about the game. Almost sold it once to someone on the board last year, but I want to say his wife nixxed the idea. Anyway, I'm thinking if I sell off this I'll feel good about the money I'm about to spend on the Kingdom Death Ks >_<

My basic searches are showing Grand King accounts going for $1200-$1600 in most listings, but I'd be thrilled to double my initial investment if 1K is an easy sell to a board member. Let me know.

(And Sold for $800)

Onoes said:

(And Sold for $800)

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dang. i was thinking of a way to talk my wife into it