New deck videos for TotG

Daria, Dimensional Witch by Hisakata Soji

Had a bit of a dry spell in making deck overview videos, but I have finally made a whole bunch of new ones for the Tempest of the Gods expansion!

Death’s Ledger Nephthys Shadowcraft
Nep was a super fun control deck that came out from Rise of Bahamut, but it had a couple of big weaknesses: a poor midgame, and terrible matchups against combo decks like Seraph Haven and DShift Rune. In Tempest, this deck has gotten quite a bit stronger because of the addition of Death’s Ledger, a card that was initially dismissed by many. It is also stronger because many of its bad matchups have been bullied out of the meta, particularly Seraph.

Ledger was dismissed because it looked like a silly RNG clownfiesta card. However, the card text is important, because it states that the Ledger will only pull Shadowcraft followers from the deck and kill them. Thus, we re-build the Nep deck by making the majority of the low cost followers neutrals. Then the only low cost Shadowcraft followers that are run are those who have strong Last Words effects. The deck I feature in the video has low cost cards like Attendant of Night and Hell’s Unleasher, who both spawn 4/4 Liches as a Last Words. Another way to build the deck is to run Lurching Corpse as the only cheap Shadowcraft follower, so that Ledger acts as a double Tribunal.

This is a very rewarding deck to play, and is the only viable control deck in the current meta other than Aegis Haven. It is also fairly cheap, as the only legendary required is Nephthys. And it is not entirely necessary to have 3 copies of her! I also want to mention that the Nephthys deck that I currently play is different than the one I feature in this video. I have since reverted the 23478 setup back to a 2378 one, replacing the Unleashers with more removal.

Enchanted Dimension Shift Runecraft
DShift Rune is a classic Shadowverse deck, but Tempest of the Gods has created a new variant of it that utilizes Shift along with Blade Mage and Enchanted Sword as its main combo cards. Compared to standard DShift, it is less consistent because the combo revolves around 3 cards instead of 2. However, the advantage is that with a good hand it can pull off the full combo much faster than normal DShift, since the cards themselves are cheaper(Flame Destroyer costs 9, while Blade Mage is 6 and Enchanted Sword is 7). Also because Enchanted Sword is a spell, it can potentially be played for 0 which greatly helps in getting off the combo.

Because more combo pieces are required, more cycle is needed. Thus, this deck also runs Lou, who draws a Spellboost card from the deck. This makes it so that 3 copies of Merlin are no longer needed, so this is a rare case of a deck archetype actually getting cheaper with a new expansion.

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you will already know that Runecraft is my favorite class, and DShift Rune is my main deck of choice. One of my favorite things about the class is that it contains a bunch of cards that are quite awful in a vacuum, but become amazing with the right synergy or if a deck is built around them. It is a rewarding experience to play this resource management game along with the standard card game in carefully building towards your end game combo. A lot more interesting than something like Swordcraft where you just play overstatted followers on curve. Enchanted Sword is an example of the type of Runecraft card that I like, because it is actually a terrible card. But it becomes amazing in this type of deck because of the spellboost synergy.

Daria Tempo Runecraft
One of the most hated decks from the previous Rise of Bahamut expansion, it is much weaker in Tempest but is still viable. The deck was quite oppressive in RoB, and got nerfed with Piercing Rune getting its cost reduction changed to 2 instead of 1. In Tempest, the deck itself has not gotten weaker, but it is much worse against the meta than before. In particular, the deck has always had a bad matchup against Ramp Dragon, and now that Ramp Dragon is god tier in Tempest the matchup is that much worse.

I will admit that I am not a big fan of this deck because of the high roll nature of it. The main idea of the deck revolves around spellboost followers, and using their cost reduction to get a huge swing turn where you flood the board while using cards like Levi and Piercing Rune to clear your opponent’s board simultaneously. Daria is used as a way to refill your hand when you run out of cards, which will definitely happen since this is an aggressive deck.

The main new addition to this deck is Magic Girl Melvie, who is a 5 cost 4/4 who draws cards for both players until they have 7 cards each. Since this deck is so reliant on drawing Daria early(part of the high rolly nature of it), Melvie serves as an additional copy of Daria that can refill your hand.

OTK Roach Forestcraft
Another deck that came out from Rise of Bahamut. The deck revolves around Rhinoceroach, which is a card that Forestcraft has always had. But RoB introduced two neutral cards that allow you to tutor 2 cost followers from your deck, Goblin Mage and Fortunehunter Feena. Roach is a very strong card and has great potential for burst damage, and your damage potential explodes when you can draw multiple roaches. The original OTK Roach deck in RoB was the strongest deck in the meta(even better than Daria), though not as meta defining. What made it so oppressive was that it could consistently draw multiple Roaches very quickly, since they were the only 2 drops that were run. The deck was also an aggro deck as it ran a critical mass of 1 drops, so it could grab the board fast and get in some chip damage, which would be enough for the Roach combo to do lethal damage on Turns 6-7.

Eventually the deck got nerfed by a change to Goblin Mage, who now draws a 2 cost or lower follower from the deck. This effectively makes it so that she can draw both 1 and 2 drops from the deck, which greatly reduces the consistency of the original OTK Roach deck. A lot of people thought that this change would kill the deck completely. But it has not, and the deck is still quite strong. What did happen was that the deck was forced to slow down. It is no longer an aggro deck, and now plays more like a Midrange deck that slowly assembles its combo throughout the game.

New additions to the deck include Crystalia Aerin, which is definitely the best card that Forest got in Tempest. Really solid card that replaces Fairy Beast in slow Forest decks, but is good enough to be run in fast decks too. She is such a flexible card, since she provides a heal, Ward, and even can be used to restore evolution points if Enhanced for 8. Jungle Warden is another welcome addition, as it is a 5 cost 4/5 Ward. Solid stats and effect, but it even has this sick enhance effect on 10 where it summons a copy of itself, and both copies get Storm. Since the Roach combo itself is slower, you cannot always assemble lethal damage fast enough. So in the late game, sometimes you can go for a Roach combo to put the opponent at very low life, and then use enhanced Jungle Warden to deal the last bit of lethal damage.

Aggro/Burn Earth Rite Runecraft
Earth Rune has traditionally been a grinder control deck, but those kinds of decks are completely unplayable in the Tempest meta because of Dragon and Aegis Haven. Cygames probably realized this when they were designing the expansion, as the majority of Earth Rite cards printed here promote a more tempo/aggro playstyle. So this deck plays like a very typical aggressive deck, where you run a lot of low drops and aim to hit a good curve. The distinguishing feature of this deck is the amount of out-of-hand burn damage it contains. It runs the classic Levi + Piercing Rune combo, and also has additional burn in some of the new Earth Rite cards that were given in Tempest. Halo Golem is a 4 cost 4/3 who deals 3 damage to any enemy as an Earth Rite, and Mage of Nightfall is a 3/2 who gains +1/+1 and Ambush as an Earth Rite. MoN isn’t technically burn, but since she gets stealthed it almost guarantees that she can go face the next turn. Magic Girl Melvie is also run here to refill your hand, and you will be running out of cards fast since this is an aggressive deck.

Honestly, this deck is pretty bad. However it is still more viable than Control Earth Rune in the current meta. I also believe that this deck was pretty strong when Cygames was designing the expansion, which is why they pushed Tempo Earth Rune so much. We know from interviews that they design expansions about 6 months in advance, which means that Piercing Rune was in its original state when they were doing this. With nerfed Piercing Rune, this deck isn’t able to get those big Turn 4-5 swings as consistently as Daria.

You might be wondering why Hulking Giant is not in this deck. It seems like he was a card that was made for an aggressive Earth Rune deck. Well, as much as I love Hulking Giant, he is too slow in the current meta. He probably would have been passable with unnerfed Piercing Rune, but the way it is now it is too hard to keep a decent board going into Turn 6 with this deck.

More card game stuff

Dark Dragoon Forte by Mushimaro

Have not updated in a while. Two of the card games that I play have both gotten expansions, and while both expansions are similar at first glance, they have had wildly different effects on the metas of their respective games.

For Hearthstone, that expansion is Un’Goro. Ungoro was seen as something of a dealbreaker expansion, as the game was in a really poor state for a long time leading up to its release. For reference, Karazhan and Gadgetzan were terribly received. Whispers of the Old Gods was an excellent expansion, but in my opinion its meta was only good for about 1.5 months. Once people figured out how good Dragon Warrior and Aggro Shaman were, that meta went downhill. Un’Goro was also the first expansion to bring in the next Standard rotation, so it had to do well or else the playerbase would shrink even more. Well much to my surprise, Blizzard really knocked it out of the park with this one. The expansion brings in lots of new mechanics and keywords, and card design is on a much higher quality than usual. They also cut down on the amount of filler cards, as almost every card released has some kind of use.

So yeah, game is super fun again after about 8 months of terrible metas. The main thing that is an issue with Hearthstone right now is getting the cards. The rate of card acquisition has always been horrendous in HS, but I feel like this new set has exacerbated this problem since a huge chunk of the fun, high impact cards are of Epic or Legendary rarity. It also doesn’t help that each class got 2 legendaries this expansion, and Quest decks basically cannot function without said quest. I have played a fair number of digital card games at this point in time now, and HS has the worst new player experience by far. The ranking ladder system is still awful as well. The rank floors that were introduced a while back for 15 and 10 were good, but they still don’t fix the issue of the monthly ladder reset. Now I don’t think the idea of a reset is bad. Resets are fine, but when people at Rank 5 to Legend get demoted all the way to 17 and 18 every season the experience is just miserable for everyone. I have no idea who came up with this system. It almost feels like it was a placeholder rank system that was not changed because the devs had other priorities.

One thing that I will say is that Un’Goro did add a solid core of neutral cards that can be used to great effect in almost every deck. I am talking about the core elemental package of Fire Fly/Tar Creeper/Tol’vir Stoneshaper/Servant of Kalimos. It won’t be amazing in every deck, but it’s passable and good enough to do dailies with. So new players can just invest in the elemental package for dailies and build their collection slowly this way. The best thing about this package is that it is actually fair and doesn’t feel oppressive. The splashable neutrals that were run in pre-standard HS like Haunted Creeper/Piloted Shredder/Sludge Belcher/Dr Boom were way too strong and powercrept almost every minion at the same cost.

Shadowverse’s newest expansion is Tempest of the Gods, and like Un’Goro it also gave two legendaries for each class. No new keywords were introduced though. This expansion also has some really solid card design, but it has had a terrible effect on the meta. In short, the meta in Shadowverse now is very similar to that of the previous Mean Streets of Gadgetzan meta in Hearthstone. The meta is dominated by two decks who are complete polar opposites of each other: Ramp Dragon which is basically hyper control, and Midrange Shadow which is basically hyper aggro with enough overtuned cards that let it play the value game against slower decks. There is also a 3rd deck, Aegis Haven, which is not actually that strong, but its mere existence shuts out a lot of other control decks. Sounds a lot like the old Pirate/Reno/Jade trifecta, doesn’t it?

One of the most frustrating parts about the current SV meta is the extinction of several previously viable control decks. Right now, the only playable control decks are Aegis Haven and Nephthys Shadow, who both have (almost unstoppable) endgame win conditions. Any kind of classic control deck that aims to outvalue its opponent and/or grind them out of resources is dead in the meta, because you can never beat Dragon(the ultimate lategame faction) and you cannot outgrind Aegis, because Aegis is actually invincible.

Cygames has stated in interviews that because SV is a primarily mobile game, they want to keep the game length short by printing extremely powerful late game cards. And honestly, this is not something that I really disagree with. One thing that has always bothered me about Hearthstone is how awful expensive cards are, and how overly strong early game cards are. They are so bad that the only ones that see play are cards that have an immediate impact, like Dr Boom and Ragnaros. And there was even a period of time where Ragnaros disappeared from the meta because of token decks being everywhere. So I do like that Shadowverse is willing to push the boundaries and print super strong endgame cards. However, I feel that they crossed the line with Tempest because control matchups are no longer about carefully managing your resources, and are all about who can drop their endgame bomb card first. So I would like to see Aegis get changed or at least have some real counters printed for it. A neutral Aldor Peacekeeper-like card would be great.

The good news is that Cygames has a great track record of stepping in to fix things when the meta is bad. The previous meta in Rise of Bahamut was also quite bad at first, but after they nerfed Piercing Rune and Goblin Mage it became amazing. The post nerf RoB meta is probably my most favorite meta in SV so far, actually. Every faction was playable and had multiple viable decks. So I have faith that Cygames will make the correct changes soon. I still think that Albert was a huge mistake, though. I absolutely detest that card(and the Swordcraft faction in general), because the class just plays overstatted followers on curve, many of which bypass summoning sickness with Rush or Storm. Even though Albert is no longer a problem card in the current meta, he is way overtuned and he is in the class that has the largest amount of Storm followers. I would really like to see him changed so that he normally has Rush, and only gains Storm as an Enhance effect. This way, he is a lot worse as an aggressive card but can still be used as a big endgame threat for Control Sword, in keeping true to Cygames’ mobile design philosophy.

One thing that I have learned playing Shadowverse for this long is that Cygames is a monkey’s paw developer. Unlike Blizzard with Hearthstone, they actually listen to their playerbase and respond quickly. They always answer the wishes of the playerbase, but it comes with unintended consequences:

Haven was one of the worst crafts in standard SV, and people really wanted them to be viable.
Darkness Evolved comes out, where almost every Haven card contained is amazing. It also gives birth to 3 new archetypes: Storm, Elana, and Seraph Haven.

People hated on DShift Rune in standard and DE, and wanted a follower based Spellboost Runecraft deck that was more interactive to play against.
Rise of Bahamut releases, and gives us Daria Runecraft.

People hated on Path to Purgatory for being too oppressive, and not hating any efficient answers to it.
We get Bahamut, one of the most obscene cards ever printed.

People wanted Dragon and Shadow to be good, after these two factions were both relatively lackluster in DE and RoB.
We get Tempest of the Gods, where Dragon and Shadow get some of the most overtuned cards ever printed.

Take Two Arena heavily favored the player going 2nd.
The recent Arena changes fix the going 1st vs 2nd imbalance, but introduce a whole slew of other problems that are too long to talk about here.