Hello, I’m Gage “HyenaNipples” Lawhon, and it is my pleasure to be this week’s guest contributor to Hex Vault’s “Card Mechanics” column! For my contribution, I have something completely new. This idea bounced right out of my brain, so this definitely isn’t something the Cryptozoic team has up their sleeves.
My concept is a new Keyword, but unlike any of those already in the game, this one is a detrimental Keyword. I call it ‘Infected,’ and here’s what it would do:
‘Infected: at the beginning of each turn, the controller of this troop takes 1 damage.’
Before I go deeper, let’s take a look at the two cards featuring this new Keyword. The first card is essentially a Wild version of the Blood card, Zombie Plague, except that it works a little differently.
Fungal Infection
I think Fungal Infection offers a slightly different play experience than Zombie Plague. Whereas the Blood card overtly turns the opponent’s deck against them after a period of suspense, Fungal Infection would be a more subtle and sinister force. Each turn, the victimized player knows that their own, un-cast troops are all becoming dangerous; they are all becoming poison, but since you have to play the troops in order to survive, it’s a poison you are forced to swallow.
For the player who is employing Fungal Infection, you get to wait – like a komodo dragon stalking the poisoned buffalo. You don’t need to rush, you have plenty of time to watch your opponent slowly die. Of course, for this strategy to be viable, you will need a more active approach to spreading the Infected Keyword:
Bloated Sporeburster
I think it’s important that ‘Infected’ isn’t something the player can directly control. This is germ warfare, not dripping poison into someone’s drink. It should require a bit of creative thinking to spread about the battlefield, and it should be messy and inexact. This is the concept behind the Bloated Sporeburster. Note how if you want to use it, you have to get it killed. You can’t simply sacrifice it, because you need to do actual damage to pop the spore filled sack. Also: it will infect your own troops, too. How are you going to deal with that?
This also gives the opponent a chance to prevent the infection of their own troops. They can remove the Sporeburster without damaging it, they can choose not to attack, or they deal with it in some other way. However even with the ability to counter cards like the Sporeburster with play decisions, the addition of such an offensive Keyword will require the addition of some defensive measures for opposing players to employ.
Here is an example of a Diamond card that would utilize the recently revealed ‘revert’ keyword. A card that is reverted back to its natural state would also lose the Infected keyword. Since we have yet to see Diamond’s (X) cost spell, I took some liberties:
Faith Rewarded
Of course, all the colors should have some manner of reversion. Fancy healing shouldn’t be available to an offensive color like Ruby. Their method would be less elegant, less effective, but potentially useful as a weapon:
Arena Medic
And that’s my idea for the Infected Keyword! I hope you all found this interesting, as I would love to come back and write for Hex Vault again in the future! Please let me know what you think on the forums! Also, if you liked my writing, you can find more articles at my home site, HexTCG Shuffle. Thanks for reading!
Art Credits for Card Art
- Fungal Infection: ‘Fungus Zombie Final Comp’ by Art-Minion-Andrew0
- Bloated Sporeburster: ‘Plague Spitter’ by Chippy
- Faith Rewarded: ‘Dawn Star‘ by puimun
- Arena Medic: ‘Sexy Orc Portrait’ by thomaswievegg