Blitz

Blitz is an all-new gametype featured in the real-time strategy game Halo Wars 2. Instead of base building and resource management, Blitz focuses on faster paced card-based strategy. It can be played in teams of one, two and three.

Mechanics
Unlike the rest of Halo Wars 2, the player is not given command over a base. Instead, they will be required to select one of their decks of cards, which they can customise from the Blitz menu. Each leader can have a maximum of three decks saved at once, and each deck supports 12 cards. Cards represent units and leader powers and each card consumes a different amount of energy when deployed. Some cards have prefixes denoting special attributes such as the "Terror Chopper" which has the Shock attribute. These attributes change how the unit performs in battle. The starting army of any given deck can be altered, changing which units the player spawns with at the start of the game.

Once a deck has been created and a match started, the player's starting army will be at their home base, a Forerunner structure that heals any friendly units that are placed on it. Four random cards will be drawn from the player's deck and placed in their hand, which is visible at the bottom of their screen. These can be deployed, provided the player has enough energy, by (on Xbox One) holding LT, selecting a card and pressing A. The required energy will be subtracted from the player's total, the unit will spawn wherever the crosshairs are pointing and the card in the hand will be swapped for another. If a unit is not spawned at home base (excluding units with the Rush attribute), it will spawn at half health and deal half damage in what is known as deployment fatigue. After a few seconds, these debuffs will deactivate, provided the unit does not get damaged by the enemy. If a player does not like a card in their hand, they can swap it out for another random card at the cost of 5 energy points.

Energy is required to deploy units and use leader powers. In normal Blitz, energy is accumulated passively at a slow rate. Periodically, energy pickups will be dropped onto the map. Destroying these pods and collecting the energy that spills out of them will increase the rate at which energy is accumulated. Units experiencing deployment fatigue will be unable to pick up the energy from such pods.

Objective
The objective of Blitz is to hold more of the three control points than the enemy team. Control points can be captured simply by placing units upon them, however there must be no enemy units on the plate at the same time, else it will be contested. Whenever a team holds more control points than their enemy, they will begin to slowly earn points. Once a team reaches 200 points, they will win the match. If neither team manages to accumulate 200 points, then the winner will be decided by whichever team has the most points when the time limit is up.

Variants
Below are a list of variants of the Blitz gametype:


 * Blitz Firefight: Blitz Firefight player(s) to survive for as long as possible against unlimited waves of enemies controlled by the AI. As with normal Blitz, the AI wins if it accumulates 200 points by owning more control points than its enemy. Players cannot win in this manner. They must simply defend these points for as long as they are capable. Otherwise, Blitz Firefight functions identically to normal Blitz, except that energy isn't earned passively - it can only be replenished by destroying and collecting energy drops.

Supported Maps
Currently, Blitz can only be played on The Proving Grounds.

Earning Blitz cards
Blitz cards can be found in Blitz packs. Such packs reward the player with 6 Blitz cards each. Packs can be earned in a variety of ways. Completing challenges will award the player with packs, as will earning enough XP to rank up. Also, completing the three tutorials and each campaign mission for the first time will award Blitz packs. Additionally, certain actions such as earning the Playin' the Field and Adjudicate the Arbiter achievements in Halo Wars and Halo Wars: Definitive Edition will earn the player one and three Blitz packs respectively (if the player owns both games, they can earn these packs twice by earning the achievements in both games). Participants in the Blitz Beta will have earned at least one pack, possibly two if they completed a match in it. Finally, Blitz packs can be purchased for real money from the Microsoft store.

List of Blitz cards
Below is a list of all Blitz cards in Halo Wars 2. A more detailed list can be found here.

Trivia

 * Blitz is the only gametype in Halo Wars 2 to feature Jeff Steitzer as the Announcer.