I wrote about these two decks in previous posts, but since then I have been constantly updating the decks accordingly with the meta, and felt that I should talk about the changes!
First up is N’Zoth Miracle Rogue. The core of the deck is still the same, but much to my displeasure I have had to remove Sylvanas and Shadowcaster. I like Shadowcaster a lot and want her to work, but these two cards are a bit too slow in this aggro meta. These two cards are also great at beating control, but in my opinion the deck is already quite strong against control decks so they are unnecessary. My final version of the deck is:
2 Backstab
2 Preparation
1 Shadowstep
1 Bloodmage Thalnos
2 Eviscerate
2 Journey Below
2 Sap
2 Undercity Huckster
2 Earthen Ring Farseer
1 Edwin Vancleef
2 Fan of Knives
2 Shadow Strike
2 SI:7 Agent
2 Tomb Pillager
2 Azure Drake
2 Gadgetzan Auctioneer
1 N’Zoth, the Corruptor
So this is a lot closer to sjows version of the deck than my original one. I used to have an additional 4 drop(Violet Teacher, which would have been Xaril if I had one) but I have since replaced it with a single copy of Shadowstep. I was just doing this to mess around at first, but I now believe that at least one copy is an auto-include in this kind of deck. The reason is that a 4 drop can often be too slow if you are behind. Shadowstep’s power is in its flexibility. Obviously the dream is to play N’Zoth and then Shadowstep it in the vs control matchup, but against faster decks you can often be dead before you reach Turn 10. In those matchups, using a Shadowstep for an extra 2 dmg using SI Agent, another 3 heal to face with Farseer, or using it to build a big Vancleef is often times a lot more helpful than just slamming down a 4 drop.
Next up is Miracle C’Thun Rogue. I have had to remove Blade of C’Thun because that card was only useful in the vs Control matchup and too clunky everywhere else. Similar to N’Zoth, this deck also has a decent matchup vs Control so I felt the Blade was unnecessary. The final version of this deck is:
Originally I had a single copy of Deadly Poison in this deck, but I felt like that card was really underperforming in most matchups, so I have replaced it with Shadowstep. Deadly Poison is so much weaker with no Oil and the nerfed Blade Flurry. One thing that is scary is that this deck runs no heals, but it does have a great defensive card in the form of the Twin Emperors. You have to actually get to Turn 7 first though, which is what the Shadowstep helps with. Shadowstep is great for the same reasons I mentioned in the N’Zoth deck. Really helps stabilize in the early game.
Between these two decks, I feel that N’Zoth is stronger overall, but my winrate is significantly higher with C’Thun for some reason. It might just be a playstyle thing. I do find N’Zoth Miracle a lot more fun though, as every game is so different due to the Journey Belows and Hucksters. They can often create surprise win conditions, like this one game where a Huckster gave me an Antonidas vs a Mage.
Shadowverse is a digital card game that I’ve been playing a lot recently. Made by Cygames, the company behind Granblue Fantasy and Rage of Bahamut, the game is clearly inspired by Hearthstone, sharing many of the mechanics and having a similar gameflow. There are even game equivalent keywords, just renamed:
Fanfare = Battlecry
Last Words = Deathrattle
Storm = Charge
Ward = Taunt
Ambush = Stealth
So HS players will feel right at home here and can pick up the game quickly. I definitely recommend giving this a shot if you like HS, because it is similar but also different enough to be interesting. In my opinion, it is also a lot more generous towards people who want to go the free-to-play route. Right now, the game is only available on Android and iOS, but it has already been greenlit on Steam so perhaps it will be available for PC in the future! And if you do not have a mobile device for whatever reason and do not want to wait for the inevitable PC release, the game is playable on the Android emulators Leapdroid, BlueStacks, and NOX.
The most unique thing about Shadowverse is the Evolve mechanic. Available either on Turn 4(if you’re going second) or Turn 5(if you’re going first), you are allowed to evolve a minion once a turn into a stronger one. Every minion in the game has a stronger form that they can evolve to with boosted stats and sometimes a secondary effect. More importantly, evolve also gives that minion Charge if they were played that turn. However, it is not full charge, because they can’t go face. Think Icehowl from Hearthstone.
A very common T4/T5 play in this game is to play your on-curve 4 or 5 drop and then evolve it to immediately attack into one of your opponent’s minions. The evolution mechanic is also the main thing that distinguishes the player who goes 1st from the one who goes 2nd. Unlike HS, there is no coin in Shadowverse. Instead, the player who goes 1st can only start evolving on turn 5, and can only evolve twice in a game. The player who goes 2nd can start evolving on Turn 4, and can evolve a total of three times in a game. A big part of the game is timing your evolves to get the biggest momentum swing.
The other unique thing that Shadowverse has over Hearthstone is the existence of amulets. Amulets are cards that when played, have a passive effect on the game. They take up a spot on the board, but cannot attack and cannot be attacked by opposing minions. The only way to remove them is to play certain cards that target amulets, or to play a card that has a Banish effect in it. Banish allows you to remove anything on the board, including amulets.
This particular amulet gives +1/+1 to a random minion at the start of your turn.
Other smaller differences from HS include:
Decks consist of 40 cards
You can have up to 3 of any card in a deck, including Legendaries
Heroes start with 20 life
Maximum cards you can hold in your hand are 9
You can have a maximum of 5 minions on each side of the board
If you fatigue(draw your whole deck), you lose
There are neutral spells
In the current cardpool, there are far more class cards than neutrals
There are 7 classes in Shadowverse, and they are all quite distinct from each other. Some of them are clearly inspired by Hearthstone heroes as well!
アリサ Arisa
Forestcraft or エルフ Elf
So this is one of the few classes that does not really have a Hearthstone equivalent, although she does have many cards that are similar to some of the classic Rogue spells. The main theme of this class is fairies, and many of her cards generate 1 play point 1/1 fairy tokens in your hand. So she can flood the board with tokens easily. Forestcraft has many cards that gain bonuses that scale on the number of cards played that turn, similar to Questing Adventurer and Edwin Vancleef. She also has many spells and followers with bounce effects like Shadowstep and Sap.
エリカ Erika
Swordcraft or ロイヤル Royal
Swordcraft is basically the Paladin of the game, flavorwise at least. The majority of the class cards are minions that are divided into two categories: officers and commanders. Officers tend to be low-cost minions that generate tokens, and commanders tend to be higher cost minions that buff officers. There are also a lot of class spells that buff minions as well. So people who like playing Zoo Warlock in Hearthstone will definitely feel right at home with this class, as the styles are very similar: grab the board very quickly with low-cost minions, and then buff them to make favorable trades.
イザベル Isabelle
Runecraft or ウィッチ Witch
I guess she would kind of be Mage and Rogue combined in one class. Flavorwise, Isabelle is a witch so many of her cards are spells. Her class specific mechanic is Spellboost, which adds a bonus effect to all spells in your hand whenever you cast a spell. And this effect is carried over across turns. For example, the Wind Blast spell is a 2 mana deal 1 damage, which is quite poor, but its Spellboost effect is to add 1 damage. So if you cast 4 spells while the Windblast was sitting in your hand, it will now do 5 damage. Her most ridiculous spell is Dimension Shift, which is an 18(!) mana card that gives you another turn. Or you can think of it as forcibly making your opponent skip his next turn. Just like in HS, you top out at 10 mana, so you can’t play this card normally, but Dimension Shift’s spellboost effect is to reduce the cost of the card by 1. So there are spell-heavy combo decks that revolve around this card, and they are quite similar to Miracle Rogue in playstyle.
ローウェン Rowen
Dragoncraft or ドラゴン Dragon
Definitely the Druid of Shadowverse. The class specific mechanic is Overflow, which is an effect that activates when you are at 7 mana or higher. Many of the Dragoncraft minions either gain a stat boost or an additional effect when you are in Overflow. To help get into Overflow faster, Dragoncraft is the only class in the game with mana acceleration. They have the Shadowverse equivalent of Wild Growth as well as a few minions with a Wild Growth effect attached to them. Flavorwise, the class also has the most big-pile-of-stat minions, which is fitting seeing as how most of them are dragons.
ルナ Luna
Shadowcraft or ネクロ Necro
The class specific mechanic is Necromancy, which relies on something called Shadows. You can think of Shadows as just the number of cards in your discard pile if you were playing a physical card game. So every time a minion dies or you cast a spell, they get sent to the discard pile or graveyard. So it turns out that Shadows are not a class specific thing, but Shadowcraft is unique in that it has additional ways to generate Shadows, as well as ways to consume them. The Necromancy mechanic is attached to some of the Shadowcraft minions, which adds a buff or additional effect if you have enough shadows. For example, the Skeleton Fighter is a 1 mana 1/1 minion, with Necromancy(1): Gain +1/+1. So if you have at least 1 shadow, it will consume it and turn into a 2/2. Many Shadowcraft cards also have the keyword Bane, which allows a minion to destroy anything it attacks. Think Maexxna or Emperor Cobra from Hearthstone. Shadowcraft does not really play like any of the other classes in HS, but flavorwise it has a lot of undead minions.
ユリアス Urias
Bloodcraft or ヴァンパイア Vampire
The Warlock of the game. His class mechanic is Vengeance, which activates whenever he is at 10 health or lower. Many of his cards get a stat bonus or additional effect if your hero is in Vengeance mode. To help get to 10 health quicker, Bloodcraft has a lot of cards that are overpowered for their mana cost, but require a sacrifice(which is usually your own life). For example, there is a 2 mana spell that draws 2 cards, but at the cost of doing 2 damage to your own face. Sounds a lot like Lifetap, doesn’t it? Many of the Bloodcraft cards also have the keyword Drain, which restores health equal to the number of damage dealt by a follower whenever it attacks. His playstyle is similar to the old Handlock deck in Hearthstone, so if you liked that deck you will definitely enjoy this class.
イリス Eris
Havencraft or ビショップ Bishop
As you can probably expect from her appearance, she is the Priest of Shadowverse. She has a large number of healing cards, minions with low attack and high health, and even the game’s equivalent of Shadow Word Pain(though it depends on a minion’s remaining health rather than attack). The class specific mechanic is Countdown, which is related to the Havencraft amulets. The class has a number of minions that are completely broken for their mana cost, like a 1 mana 5/3 and a 2 mana 4/4. The catch is that after paying the mana cost, they do not get summoned right away; they come out a few turns later through countdown amulets. These amulets have no passive effect, but have a number on them that decreases each turn. When that number reaches 0, the amulet summons the minion. The 1 mana 5/3 I was talking about has a Countdown of 4, so if played on Turn 1, it will actually be summoned on Turn 5. To help speed things up, Havencraft also has a number of cards that either subtract from the countdown amulets or destroy them altogether.
Free to play tips
I mentioned in the beginning that I think this game is much more generous than Hearthstone for people who want to spend nothing. However, it is still important to understand the rewards system of the game to get the most out of your time.
The first thing to know about this game is that starting a new account is very easy. The in-game tutorial is fully skippable and at this moment you get 18 free packs just for beating it. So if you do not like what you get in those initial packs, don’t be afraid to delete and re-install the game to try your luck again.
If you are new to the game, you probably have no idea what cards are good or even what class you want to play. So I would recommend for your 1st account, just play through everyone’s story mode. Not only does this teach you about how every class works, but you also get rewards! Story mode consists of a series of 8 battles against the AI in between dialogue, and you get rewards for every battle along the way. The first and sixth battles always unlock a class card, and the other battles give you in-game currency or other rewards. Once you have decided which class you like, then you can go back and re-roll your packs if you did not get their key legendaries.
There are now a bunch of new player guides that can be very helpful. The Shadowverse Gamepress site has a ton of guides available, including a reroll guide that has suggestions for which legendary and gold cards to look out for when making an account. Game AI has an introductory page for every class which includes starter and intermediate decks, but it is in Japanese. The official English Shadowverse homepage also has starter decks for every class including budget replacements for legendaries.
Speaking of legendaries, the drop rate in Shadowverse seems way more generous compared to HS. In Hearthstone, it has been tested and generally agreed upon that the pity timer for legendaries is 40 packs. I do not know if there is a pity timer for Shadowverse, but if there is, I would estimate that it is about 7-8 packs from my experience. Each pack also gives you 8 cards, so I feel like you get way more bang for your buck.
However, there is another side to this. Getting packs in Shadowverse is easier than in other card games. However, crafting specific cards that you want is more difficult. Take a look at the enchant and disenchant rates:
Just like in HS, there are four tiers of card rarities in this game: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Legendary. You can see from the chart that the crafting material(vial) rates are worse for Bronze and Silvers, but better for Golds and Legendaries compared to Hearthstone. In addition, even liquefying animated cards does not give you the full value of the vials needed to make the normal version of that card. So this is another reason why re-rolling is helpful in this game. If you know what legendaries and golds you want, re-rolling your account can potentially save a lot of vials.
When you start an account, you get a bunch of free stuff. Right now, it is around 30-40 packs. There are also achievements for beating the Elite difficulty AI: each gives you 200 rupees, so that’s a total of 1400 free rupees right there. Completing each leader’s story mode also gives you a free arena ticket, so if you combine that with the starting freebies that is around 10 free Take Two runs.
For a free to play player, the main source of in-game income is going to be from daily quests. So it is important to learn how to min/max them for time and income efficiency. Just like Hearthstone, you can have a maximum of 3 quests in your queue. And you are allowed to re-roll one quest every 24 hours. But one important difference is that after finishing them, every individual quest has a 21 hour cooldown. This means that the most efficient way of doing quests is to wait until you have a full queue of 3, and then just do all of them at once. This way, you get 3 brand new quests in 21 hours. It is a great system and allows you to earn in-game currency much faster than most other digital card games.
Since your main income is from quests, it is important to be able to play every class. Which brings me to the next very important point. Do not play ranked unless a quest requires it. The reason is that in Shadowverse, the MMR is shared across both ranked and casual(unranked). So if you play unranked, the game will still try to match you up with people who are the same rank as you. Normally there is nothing wrong with that, but it can make your life very difficult if you are trying to complete dailies. Say you achieved a very high rank with a good Swordcraft deck, and you now have a Forestcraft daily you want to complete. Except that you are missing a lot of the key cards for Forestcraft, and thus cannot make a decently strong deck. Winning matches is going to be very difficult because the game is going to constantly try to match you up with similar high ranked players. So the take home message for the F2Per is, play only unranked in the beginning when you have a limited collection to make your dailies easier.
Lovers Arcana Yamada Lvl99 