Introduction

Hello future Hexxer,

This guide is intended to give you the basics of starting a free to play account. It's not going to do much to cover gameplay, but it will show you where everything is, what you can do without paying and answer some common new player questions. Hopefully it will cover everything in the game that doesn't actively happen on the game board.

If you'd like additional reading (with more pictures) follow this link:http://board.hex.gameforge.com/index.php?thread/43170-new-player-guide-read-me/ for King Gabriel's new player guide.

Hex is a different beast than many people are used to when it comes to digital card games. It is a TRADING card game as opposed to a COLLECTIBLE card game. The key distinction between the two is a trading card game allows for the purchase, sale and trading of cards. Because of this your cards have real monetary value. Some cards you could get right now (April 2016) sell for over $30 on the secondary market. The flip side of this is that cards can't just be given to you constantly. If you're going to be a free to play player you're going to need to have a definite goal you're working towards, not just "get all the cards". On the bright side the value of your collection and thus potential of your decks will constantly be growing as you play. If something you absolutely must have is released you won't have to grind endlessly to get it. Instead you'll be able to sell or trade your cards to other players and buy what you like.

Hex consists of two different but interdependent aspects, PvE and PvP. PvE is 100% free to play. By playing the campaign or frost arena you'll earn gold (the free to play currency), equipment, cards and other goodies which you can use to improve your deck. However, the cards you earn will only the most common of PvP cards and PvE cards. PvE cards can ONLY be used in PvE content and NOT against other players.

PvP requires PvP cards which can be obtained by purchasing PvP packs from either the store (with platinum, the pvp currency) or auction house (with either platinum or gold). PvP cards can be used for ANY content and are generally more valuable than PvE cards due to rarity and being able to be used for both aspects of the game. PvP cards and packs are usually purchasable on the auction house for gold, but are not cheap. We'll come back to how the Hex economy works later, but for now just understand that you can play PvE entirely for free and have a great time, but if you want to get seriously into PvP it's going to take some significant effort or a real money investment. That said, many players DO make good constructed decks without spending a dime.

If you have any questions feel free to mail me in game. My name is Refugee and I'll do my best to help you out. If you'd like a more immediate answer feel free to speak up in chat and most often someone will be able to assist. Players with orange text boxes work for Hex Entertainment, but there are many people such as myself watching out for new players.
The Home Screen

The first thing you see when you log into Hex is the Home Screen. Let's look at that now.

This information is dated. The home screen is frequently revised. However, I'm leaving it for the time being as it may still guide you in some ways.


Along the top right we have several buttons. They are:

1. The Store: This is where you buy things such as packs or preconstructed decks for PLATINUM. It's also where you open packs, chests and interact with the wheels of fate (more on that later).
2. The Auction House: This is where you're going to go if you want to buy things as a F2P player most of the time. Here players sell everything that's sellable (nearly everything) to other players. Search for anything you want and if you have enough gold it's yours. What you want not being sold for gold right now? Check back later or try trade chat.
3. Stash: This is where non-card items live. Packs, Mercenaries, equipment, etc.
4. Mail: Here you can send and receive mail to other players. Most importantly this is the main non-auction house method of trading. You can attach items to mail and send them Cash on Delivery (CoD) so when the other player accepts them you get paid. This is how you will sell gold.
5. Settings: Settings to adjust the game

Along the middle of the screen we have:

6. News: News about upcoming events for Hex.
7. Campaign: This is one of the two main PvE areas. We'll go into this in depth in a later section.
8. Battlegrounds: This is a very important button. It hides the second main PvE area, the frost ring arena, has the random opponent button if you want to play a game for fun against another player, houses the tournament area for playing against other players in tournaments for prizes (Almost all tournaments require a platinum entry fee) and lastly the tutorial.
9. Collection: This is where you’ll access the card manager to view your collection and build decks. THIS CARD MANAGER IS WHERE YOU WILL SEE YOUR FULL COLLECTION. A VERY common problem for new players is "I can't find the card I just bought". If you can't find a card LOOK HERE. Do NOT look at your campaign card manager. The campaign card manager has filters by default to help you build your pve deck. It will NOT show your full collection by default.


And in the bottom right (not shown) is the chat.

In the following sections we'll cover the important areas for the free to play player.

As stated in the previous section Hex has two aspects. PvP and PvE. Here are the main differences between them:

PvE:
• Mostly restricted to the Campaign and Frost Arena
• Primarily uses gold as a currency
• Uses both PvP and PvE cards
• Very few tournaments
• Mostly involves playing against an AI opponent
• Distinguishable by embellishment in the top left of the card.

PvP:
• Mostly deals with tournament play
• Primarily uses platinum as a currency
• Uses ONLY PvP cards

As a F2P player you're most likely going to start your life playing through the campaign and frost arena (possibly several times). As a reward for doing this you will gain gold, cards, equipment and other goodies such as star dust. For the most part, these things aren't going to be particularly valuable. However, the gold in particular is frequently bought by PvP players in order to "spin treasure chests" which are obtained for PvP packs. By selling PvP players your gold you'll be able to obtain platinum which you can use to enter tournaments, buy cards, or whatever else you like. It's important to note, with the exception of tournament entry fees nearly everything you could buy with platinum you could also buy with gold so there isn't an inherent benefit to selling your gold for platinum. However, frequently auction house prices are better in platinum than gold, so having at least some is a good idea.

So, you play through the campaign and you've got a little bit of gold. How much is it worth and how do you sell it? The price of gold fluctuates so I can't give you an estimate since by the time you read this it may have changed. But I will tell you how to sell it. First click the "Chat" button the the bottom right hand corner. Then click the "Trade" window in the top right of the chat window and ask what the current gold ratio is. When you have that information advertise (without spamming) in trade chat that you're selling gold at a ratio of 1:120 (for example). When you've found a buyer click the Mail button in the top right of the Home screen and send them a mail with your gold attached. Make sure to set the CoD to the agreed upon price so you get paid!

What is gold used for besides selling? Every time a PvP pack is opened a chest is generated. Players can put these chests in the wheels of fate (found in the store) along with some gold. Much like a slot machine the player then receives back some nice item or nothing. You could win cards, equipment, gold, stardust, Alternate Art, sleeves and more. But mostly you get nothing. Gold can also be used to purchase stardust in order to extend the art on cards. Further uses will be revealed as the game is developed as well.


What can YOU do with your platinum and gold? Mostly you'll be buying things off the auction house. You could buy packs to enter tournaments with but you need to be reasonably familiar with how the game works to profit there. That said it IS possible (and in fact if you're skilled not that difficult) to "go infinite" in Hex tournaments. That is to say, good players earn more value from tournaments than they cost on a frequent basis. So if you think you've got what it takes feel free to join a draft, sealed or constructed tournament. Remember me when you're rolling in your filthy lucre.

The most fun PvE part of Hex is undoubtedly the campaign. I've played through it at least a half dozen complete times and done dozens of partial playthroughs. Depending on your skill level, deck and general speed it has anywhere from 10 to 20 hours of content per playthrough. There are 8 races and 3 classes all of which play differently giving you a lot of replay value.
Character Creation

To get started click the Campaign button on the Home screen. Click "Create Champion" and you'll end up at a screen like this:

Select whichever gender/class/race combination looks best to you, put in your name and hit the create champion button. Don't worry too much about getting the optimal race/class selection. You can have up to 10 characters currently and you'll probably want to play the campaign more than once anyway since the most valuable cards can only be earned once per character. Just pick something that looks good to you and if you don't like it try again. The one tip I'll give you is it's pretty hard to go wrong with an elf. The coyotle cleric is also a popular starter character.
The Tutorial

Select your champion and you'll be somewhere like this (varies by race):

Click through all the text and you'll be confronted with an individual fight against an AI of your own race then a short dungeon consisting of several fights of the opposing race. You must use the default deck you are provided for these fights. You can not modify it until AFTER you have completed the first dungeon.
The Campaign Proper

Eventually you'll end up in a place that looks like this (but with less of the map revealed):

Each of these colored nodes shown represents an encounter. Green nodes have nothing on them (you've already done them and can only do them once or there was never anything there). Blue nodes have an encounter you can repeat. Yellow nodes have encounters you have visited but need to return to. Red nodes you can not walk over without doing an encounter (rare). Grey nodes have not yet been visited. A little flag on a node means you have a quest to progress by going there. Most encounters will be a fight against an AI opponent which will reward you with gold, exp and maybe an additional reward when you beat it. The first time you beat it an additional area of the map will likely also be opened up to you.

Most encounters will grant you an Adventure Zone 1 pack the first time you beat them. This will contain 1 PvE card, a couple pvp commons and some other goodies such as stardust or equipment. They aren't worth very much so you might as well open them and enjoy your new cards. Completing a dungeon will grant you a pack exclusive to that dungeon. Some of the cards in these packs are worth a decent amount if you choose to sell them (keep an eye out for cards with red rarity symbols in the middle right of the card).
Talents and the Card Manager

In the bottom left is your character portrait, talent button and card manager button. Each time you level you will gain a talent point which can be put into a variety of class specific perks to help you defeat the evils of Entrath. You may reset your talents for free once per level or pay 100 gold to reset them at any time.

The card manager is where you modify your deck. Additionally, the manager is PRE-FILTERED to only show you cards which your level and race allow. In the bottom right of the card manager you'll see an arcane grid that looks something like this:

This is the shard grid. It changes as you level and dictates what shards and rarities your deck can use. Along the left side are the different shards, blood, diamond, ruby, sapphire, wild and shardless. Along the top are the different rarities, common, uncommon, rare, legendary. In our example look at the intersection of blood (purple, top most left) and common (white, left most top) It says 3. This means we can have 3 copies of any blood common card in our deck. You can have as many DIFFERENT blood common cards as you want. But you may only have three of EACH. So you may have 3 call the grave, 3 sorrow, 3 taint, 3 giant mosquito (all blood commons) in the same deck but you may not have 4 sorrow, 4 taint or 4 of any of them.

For this reason the campaign card manager will only SHOW you 3 copies of these cards by default EVEN IF YOU HAVE MORE. This is why I emphasized earlier to use the main card manager on the home screen to view your entire collection. This character for example won't see sapphire cards at all because he can not use them.

As you level the restrictions are slowly relaxed. However, as the level cap is currently only 9 of a planned 30 you will not be able to use a full 4 copies of any card.

Notice in the top left there are two tabs.

The first is for cards. The second is for Equipment. Equipment is a pve only feature which allows you to modify how some of your cards work. You may wear six pieces of equipment at a time corresponding to the six open slots found in the top right below your character portrait. You may not have much in the way of equipment now, but if you click the Filter button near the top of the card manager you can show all equipment and browse things you may want to purchase on the auction house. This feature works for cards as well on the other tab.

More to Come

The campaign currently ends at Devonshire Keep and the maximum level is 9. However, the next major PvE content release coming later this year will expand the Campaign to another adventure zone which is even larger, introduce a new class and player strongholds where you can spend gold to improve your character in new ways.
Common Problems

There are a number of points that new players can get stuck in the campaign. Here is a quick rundown of them.

Wormoids: This is an optional encounter. You don't have to do it. However if you want to a lot of players believe adaptron is an MVP. King Gabriel would advise you if you're a warrior to take the berserking talent, bring all the gnomes, go down the left path and cast 3 of them.

Sea Hag: This is also optional. However there is a secret bonus to it. If you beat the sea queen AND revert the princess (revert is an effect that is specified on cards such as reversion) you will get a special card. Cards that revert are reasonably strong here.

Smoldering Dead Giant: This giant does nothing except hit you and himself for 1-3 damage each turn until he gets to 25 life. He will then deal damage to each of your creatures equal to how many turns have passed and start doing super mean things. Most people beat him by building up their forces (not attacking) until he knocks himself to just above 25 and then killing him in one fell swoop. You could also make your troops invulnerable/immune to ruby damage on the turn he goes off (using shard ward, noble unicorn etc).

Piranha: You need to make a specific deck to beat this. Load your deck up with cheap swift strike, 1/3s and AoE damage such as sorrow, stinging ambush and heat wave. It will likely take a few tries.

Armies of Myth level 6: Also a very difficult encounter. Generally people beat this by trying a lot and either cheating a hard to deal with troop into play (eternal guardian or similar) with a lot of resource ramping or Titania's Majesty or they have a troop that rapidly grows and has lifesteal such as righteous paladin or hunger of the mountain god with blood aura.

The Frost Ring Arena is generally considered to be the fastest way to earn gold in the game. It consists of 20 (or 15) fights in a row. You go until you lose 3 fights and then are rewarded on how far you get. The format is 4 fights against normal enemies than 1 fight against a boss and repeat. If you lose to the normal enemies you progress but you must fight the boss until you win. Once you have beaten the first 5 fights without losing a life you will be able to skip them in future arena runs if you wish.

Unlike the campaign you may use 4 copies of any card in the Frost Ring Arena. Additionally, you will select a pvp champion for your deck instead of using your pve character. You will have no talents except for your unique champion charge power. The AI opponents will each have a charge power as well and usually a passive.

Occasionally the crazy frost wizard who runs the arena will pop in and give your opponent an advantage such as an extra turn, additional life and cards or a random troop. If you defeat your opponent despite his interference you will gain a boost in the next boss fight or regain a lost life. These bonuses can even happen during boss fights so be wary!

There isn't much else to say about the arena. It's a quick grindy way to get gold if that's what you're looking for. There are a number of cards that come only from the arena (or of course buying from other players) as well as unique equipment.

Oh and there's a super hard super rare dragon that gives you 100k gold if you beat him.

There's a lot more to Hex than the F2P aspects. Tournaments are not only fun, but a great way to grow your collection. Hex currently has three tournament formats.

New Feature Edit: Since the creation of this guide a ladder system has been added to the game. In ladder players take 60 card (or more) decks against each other in a best of three constructed match. There is no entry fee to participate. Winning your match will award one or more stars. Accumulate enough stars and you advance to the next rank and receive a small prize. Total ladder rewards amount to 7 pack, tens of thousands of gold, unique alternate art cards and a season sleeve for each ladder (there are two, but only the constructed ladder is free to play. The limited ladder will cost to participate in as there are no free limited tournaments).

Draft

Draft requires 3 packs of the appropriate set and 100 platinum. It is currently the most popular format and comes in two flavors, swiss and competitive. Swiss is three rounds, win a pack for each round you win. Competitive is single elimination with 2, 3, and 5 packs for 1, 2 and 3 wins respectively.

In draft each player opens 1 pack of cards. They select 1 card from that pack and pass the remaining cards to the next player. They are similarly passed a pack of cars with 1 card missing (which the previous player selected) and then select a card from it as well. This proceeds with the player selecting 1 card from each pack in turn until all the cards are gone. The second and third pack are opened in a similar fashion. Thus the player ends up with the same number of cards they would have from opening 3 packs but instead of being a random assortment they were all selected. Players then make a deck from the cards they selected and play against each other.

The minimum deck size for Draft is 40 and there is no limit to how many of a card a player may use in a deck. All cards you draft you keep forever. So basically you pay 100 plat to open your packs in the tournament, pick the cards you want and hopefully win prizes.
Sealed

Sealed requires 6 packs and 200 platinum.

In sealed each player opens 6 packs and make a deck from the contents of the packs. They then play against each other in the tournament.

The minimum deck size for sealed is 40 cards and there is no limit to how many of a card a player may use in a deck. All cards you open you keep. So basically you're paying 200 plat for a chance at prizes.

Gauntlet

Gauntlet is an asynchronous format which comes in evo and sealed flavors. Players join the gauntlet and play either sealed or constructed matches until they win 5 or lose 3, whichever comes first. Prizing is based on number of wins. You do not have to complete the entire gauntlet at once but you will have to finish any games you start or lose.

VIP, five shards, rock league and more

A recently added format is progressive or evolving sealed gauntlet. This format requires 100 plat and 2 packs. Players make a deck from the two packs used to enter the tournament plus a random assortment of commons and uncommons. After the players first and third win they earn an additional pack which is added to their pool for use in improving their deck. After the fifth win a (still unopened) pack is added to the players inventory. So the best result is 2 packs and 100 plat for 3 packs (2 opened and 1 unopened) and an assortment of commons and uncommons. For 100 plat a player is EXTREMELY likely to turn 2 packs into 4.

Although most tournaments listed above are pay to enter and fire when the queue fills there are a few odd men out as well.

VIP tournaments are a part of the VIP subscription program. Players pay a monthly fee to receive a booster pack mailed to them each week as well as entry into 1 VIP tournament a month. These VIP tournaments are held on the last weekend of each month and alternate sealed and constructed. Winning at least two matches in a VIP tournament will award two unique AAs exclusive to the tournaments. These generally sell for quite a bit to other players. VIP subscription can be purchased in the store and includes an exclusive sleeve for 1 year of membership (a separate browser will launch when you click to purchase in the store).

Five Shards is currently a weekly free to enter constructed tournament series. Prizes begin at the top 16 and go from 2 packs to 10000 platinum. Since the creation of this rguide additional free to enter tournaments have been springing up quickly including cash prize tournaments awarding 5k in prize money (2k for first prize).

Rock League and Jank League are free to enter player run leagues geared at newer players. You can find more information on them on the Hex forums.

Many of these questions I've covered earlier in the guide. However here are a lot of new player questions all at once:

Q: How pay to win is the game?

A: In most tournament formats paying money offers no advantage whatsoever (draft and sealed). Constructed allows you to utilize your entire collection so obviously paying money allows you to have more cards faster. However, realistically you're only going to be using 75 of those cards (60 main deck and 15 reserve) so once a F2P player has managed to put together a decent constructed deck there is again, no advantage. Most of the time I see people use this phrase it actually is in the situation of "This PvE fight is hard and if I had better cards I could beat it more easily! This game is so P2W!" To that I would say, don't be upset you lost a fight to an AI that is SUPPOSED TO BEAT YOU SOMETIMES. How boring would the game be if you won every game? Secondly, many people have played the campaign only using cards gained in the campaign. It's quite doable and your personal skill and perseverance has more to do with your outcome than how much you have spent. That said, if you need help ask in chat. People are often willing to help you improve your deck for free. Just don't be annoying about it. Be specific about what you think would help you and considerate in how you ask.

Q:Why aren't all my cards showing up?

A: If you can't find your cards try going to the main home screen and clicking "Play" then "Card Manager" and look there. If that doesn't work restart the client. The campaign card manager automatically filters out cards your character can't currently use due to race/rarity/level.

Q: What is gold for?

A: Gold can be used to purchase anything players are willing to sell on the auction house. It is directly used primarily to spin the wheels of fate (chests) and purchase stardust to extend card art. The next PvE release will include additional uses such as strongholds (player structures which will allow gold expenditure for perks)

Q: How do I get my 200 free cards/starter deck etc.

A: The starter deck offer is out dated. Players are granted 200 untradeable cards upon account creation to start campaign with. You get them automatically and are what will be used to create your default deck for each race when you start campaign.

Q: What does Crush/Lethal/etc keyword do?

A: Refer to this link: http://www.hextcg.com/keywords/

Q: Should I spin my chests?

A: Chest rarity does not effect the rewards given for spins. Thus spinning a common chest is the same as legendary. The only difference is spinning a chest sometimes updgrades it and spinning a higher chest will result in higher rarity. Higher rarity chests DO have different rewards in them
including, at the highest rarity, exclusive sleeves.

Q: How do I get out of gnomes?

A: If you are stuck in the gnome encounter return to where
you picked up the gnomes and drop them back off. You can then leave.

Q: Can I modify my campaign deck?

A: You can modify your campaign deck after you beat the first dungeon. The button will be in the lower left of the screen.

Q: How do I get cards?

A: Cards can be earned by playing the campaign and arena or purchased in the auction house or store.

Q: What do I do if I encounter a bug?

A: First restart the client in an attempt to solve the issue. However if you encounter a bug that costs you something (you lose a tournament game or something) you can be compensated by support here: http://support.hex.gameforge.com/index.php?lang=en

If it didn't cost you anything than you can simply report it on the forums and move on with your life knowing you've helped to keep the game bug free. :)

Q: What is a good arena deck?

A: http://forum.cornerstoneguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=980 <- arena decks

Q: How do I get plat?

A: Plat can be purchased for real money in the store or purchased from players for gold (or other goods such as cards/dust etc.)

Q: How do a concede a game?

A: Hit escape. It will pop up a concede option.

Q: How do I use mercenaries?

A: Mercenaries are not yet implemented (April 2016)

Q: Is there Co-op play?

A: Eventually players will be able to team up in raids (three people against a super powerful AI) and play together. However, at the moment there isn't any sort of cooperative play. (April 2016)

Q: The game froze/went blurry/whatever. What do I do?

A: Try to hit space to see if that advances the game. If that doesn't work just close the client and login again. You'll be asked if you want to return to your game when you get back. There is a 5 minute turn timer so make sure you try this before you time out.
Outside Resources ( edit )
The Hex Community has put together a lot of resources which will make your life easier. Here are a few of the better ones.

King Gabriel's New player guide:

http://board.hex.gameforge.com/index.php?thread/43170-new-player-guide-read-me/

Nicosharp's arena deck ratings:

http://forums.cryptozoic.com/showthread.php?t=46001

subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hextcg/

Historical Auction house prices:

Hexprice.com

Historical tournament winning decks:

Hexmeta.com

Collection Management:

You can set this up to sync your collection automatically using the Hex API
http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/

http://forums.cryptozoic.com/showthread.php?t=48389