Suggestions on improving Shadowverse

The next Shadowverse expansion set Starforged Legends has been fully spoiled. Looking over the cards, it doesn’t take long to notice a sense of redundancy: there are a lot of cards that have similar effects to existing cards, even at similar costs. Compare Karl to Elementary Alchemy, or Globe of the Starways to Sacred Plea. There are also a number of high end cards that look like replacements for existing finishers, like King Elephant compared to Roach/Silver Bolt and Giant Chimera compared to Dimension Shift. It seems to suggest that the Standard card pack will be rotated out soon, as these new cards serve as replacements when that happens. So it got me to thinking about how I would like to do rotations to improve the game, which is why I am writing this post!

So first up, I have been playing this game for over a year, since the Standard pack. I have lived through some good and bad metas. Post nerf Rise of Bahamut was my personal favorite. I understand that card rotation is a necessary thing in all card games, but I was never a big fan of the idea of rotating out entire sets. A lot of times, a big part of a class’s identity is in a set. Or a large amount of supporting cards for a certain archetype are contained in a set. I am a much bigger fan of either a rotating core set which changes every year, or a banlist. When Hearthstone did its first rotation in the Year of the Kraken for example, I was really saddened by the loss of Mech synergy decks. Mechs were a big part of the theme of the Goblins vs Gnomes expansion, and we have never gotten decent Mech support cards since then.

Some of my suggestions involve changing legendaries. Cygames has been hesitant on nerfing legendaries directly in the past, but has shown that they are willing to change them in recent times. But I have noticed a trend in the way that they have been nerfing legendaries. Basically, the only legendaries that have gotten nerfed are Ouroboros, Snow White, Demonlord Eachtar, and Spawn of the Abyss. In every single case, the stats and cost of the original card are unchanged: only the effect or evolved stats are changed. My theory is that this is due to the existence of the real life Shadowverse promo cards that they give away all the time at special events. The promo cards mostly feature legendaries, and you can only see the card’s unevolved stats and cost. So I think they are changing legendaries this way to avoid confusion. After all, if you have a promo Pascale card for example that says she is a 5 cost 4/5, then it would be confusing to open up the game and see that she is not a 5 cost 4/5. So I will be following this example in my legendary nerf suggestions.

Right now, I would say the biggest issue with the game is in overly strong proactive early game cards. Most of these are fully statted early game followers with strong Fanfares. Printing strong Fanfare effects was actually something that Cygames admitted was done intentionally. They said it was for the purpose of improving the going 1st vs 2nd balance in Take Two. In the Take Two mode, going 2nd is favored vs going 1st because of the extra resources gained from having one more card and one more evolution point. Strong early game Fanfare effects on followers favor proactive play, which is good for the player going 1st. And indeed, this change has worked. The 1st vs 2nd imbalance in Take Two is now in the best state it has ever been. But the Constructed format has suffered a bit from it. Right now, every deck in the meta wants to go 1st. Either to push the tempo advantage, or to deny the other player the 1st turn advantage. So I would like to see future sets have less strong fanfares. This doesn’t mean that I want to see weaker effects in general. Strong effects are fine, but I think it would be much better if they were conditional or locked behind evolutions. Luckily it seems like Cygames has already dialed back a bit on strong early game fanfares, as I don’t see very many in the Starforged Legends spoilers.

Forestcraft

A class that completely dominated the Constructed meta for the first 2 expansions, and part of RoB until a certain card got nerfed. Path to Purgatory Forest is infamous for staying top tier despite a multitude of nerfs in the first 2 metas. Out of all the cards that Forest has, two stick out as particularly strong: Ancient Elf and Rhinoceroach. A long time ago, I would have probably said that Ancient Elf was too strong and needed to be nerfed. After all, it has vanilla stats for its cost, it has Ward, and it can gain even more stats depending on your previous board state. Ancient Elf was also a 3x auto-include in every Forest deck, whether it was Aggro, Combo, or Control. Nowadays, she is still a strong card, but there are some decks that do not gain much from playing her, so I think she is fine.

Roach is probably one of the most controversial cards in Shadowverse. The card on its own is very weak(and can never be played on curve), but its power exponentially increases with low cost cards and bounce effects. I will admit that I am biased here since Forest is my 2nd most played class, but I would not mind if this card stuck around. The Roach Forest combo deck and its derivatives are some of the only combo decks that are still viable in the current meta and are one of the highest skill testing decks. The other thing is that even though Roach is unquestionably a strong card, it is a card that requires a lot of support to be effective. Which means, if you say you are playing Roach, you are not really just adding 3 cards in a deck. Roach practically requires you to play 3 copies each of Nature’s Guidance and Fairy Circle. In the current meta, it is also important to be able to increase your chances of drawing it, so you also have to run Goblin Mage and Feena. And at least 2 copies of Elven Princess Mage to increase the combo potential. So Roach is more like a 17-18 card shell, and I am personally okay with strong cards that require a lot of synergy and moving parts to work. However it might not be healthy to have Roach around forever with cards that can tutor for it, specifically Goblin Mage and Feena. So maybe we can keep Roach, but rotate out those two instead.

Swordcraft

Oh boy. I have a lot of things to say about this class. First things first, it is the only class that has never gotten a card nerfed post beta in Shadowverse. And I think that is a travesty, because the class has some fundamental design issues that have never been addressed. The biggest one is that two of the most degenerate mechanics in Shadowverse(and card games in general) are part of the Swordcraft class identity: Storm and Ambush. There is nothing much to explain about Storm: anyone who has played Hearthstone or followed its metas knows how problematic Charge has been. A large portion of cards nerfed in HS were purely because of how they could be abused with Charge. A Haste mechanic is incredibly strong in a game like Shadowverse because players only have 20 health, and it is attacker’s choice. Because Storm is such a premium ability, its cards need to either be situational, or have a significant downside to limit their use to be just pure finishers. Sword unfortunately has way too many Storm cards for basically no downside. If you want an example of a well designed Haste card, Leeroy Jenkins from Hearthstone is one. He is a 5 mana 6/2, so he has a ton of attack but significantly lower health than the average 5 drop. Not only that, but he summons two 1/1 Whelps for the opponent, so if he is not played to finish the game, then the opponent can just kill off Leeroy without spending any extra resources.

Then there is Ambush. Shadowverse is a simple card game, and it is missing some mechanics that other more complicated card games like Magic have. Like the ability of the defender to assign blockers, and the ability to interact on your opponent’s turn. So a Stealth/Ambush mechanic is quite degenerate, because it lowers what little interaction we have left with our opponent in this game. Thematically it makes sense for Sword to have ambush since the class has so many ninjas. (SPOILERS!)And Erika herself is a former assassin in the SV storyline. So Ambush followers need to have a significant downside(like in stats), or be limited to high cost cards only. Tsubaki is actually an example of a well designed Ambush card.

With that said, here are the changes I would make:
I would remove every single low cost, unconditional Storm card in Sword. So just Quickblader and Novice Trooper. Novice Trooper is already getting a replacement in the form of Juliet in Starforged Legends anyways. Cards like Centaur Vanguard and Ruthless Assassin are fine because their Storm is conditional.

Then there is Albert, who is one of the most blatantly overtuned cards in the entire game. When he was first revealed, everyone knew he was ridiculous. And ever since his release, he has been a 3x auto-include in every single Sword deck, whether it be Aggro, Midrange, or Control. That is a huge problem because it just limits deck building. When you make a Sword deck, you are really making a 37 card deck because 3 slots are already taken up by Albert. The fact that he has not already been nerfed at this point in time is kind of astounding to me, to be honest. One of the issues with Albert is how as an Enhance card, he is way too strong as both a 5 drop AND as a 9 drop. Enhance is a mechanic that gives flexibility, and that flexibility should come at a slight price, but Albert in his current form does not have to pay anything. An evolved Albert played on curve takes away 25% of the opponent’s life, which is pretty ridiculous considering that Sword also has a bunch of other Storm cards alongside him.

However, I don’t think that Albert should be removed from the game. He serves as an important finisher for Control Sword, and without him that deck would have a pathetic late game. So my suggestion to nerf Albert would be to make him a 5 cost 3/5 with Rush, and he only gains Storm on Enhance. He is a legendary, so following the trend earlier, we can’t change his cost or pre-evolved stats. With this change, he is weaker as an aggro card, but still serves as a finisher for Control Sword.

Finally, Vagabond Frog. I would just remove this card from the game. Frog is one of the worst designed cards in all of Shadowverse, and I cannot think of a way to nerf him to make him less degenerate but still playable. The idea of permanent ambush in an attacker’s choice card game is retarded, and sometimes I wonder how a card like this ever got approved.

Runecraft

The main controversial card that this class has is Dimension Shift. I am definitely biased in my analysis here, as DShift Rune is my main deck and is the deck that I used to get to Master. DShift is also one of the few combo decks that are still viable in the meta, although the word viable here is certainly subjective considering the deck’s abysmal winrates. The deck is definitely one of the highest skill ceiling decks in the game alongside Combo Forest. While the deck is a lot of fun to play, it is absolutely miserable to play against. And while I think the card is totally fine in the current meta, it is probably not healthy to have around in the game forever.

However, I don’t think removing it from the game is the right choice. The main nerfs I can think of are to either increase the cost of DShift significantly so that the combo on average happens on Turn 10 onwards instead of Turn 8, or to keep DShift the same but remove some of Rune’s cycle cards that are good in the deck like Sorcery Cache. Personally I am a bigger fan of the 1st idea, because it will probably force the Dimension Shift decks to change dramatically. A Turn 10 combo is too slow against even some control decks, so that kind of deck will probably be based around Queen of Dread Sea making DShift cost 0, instead of a heavy spell cycle deck that incrementally decreases DShift’s cost.

Dragoncraft

The main card I want to change is Sibyl. Sibyl is one of the most blatantly overtuned cards in the game, and I was shocked that she was not nerfed during TotG. There was once a time when Dragon was interesting, because it had to make designs on whether to ramp or fight for the board in the early game. But with Sibyl, now it can do both. The issue is that ramp is an incredibly powerful mechanic, and there is supposed to be a price to be paid for ramping in the early game. Typically, that price is a loss of tempo which you see with Dragon Oracle and Draconic Fervor. But Sibyl ends up doing everything, as she is a fully statted 5 drop who gains full stats on evolve, ramps, and even heals! And the heal happens at the end of every turn, so she is basically a soft taunt.

It is really apparent how ridiculous Sibyl is when you compare her to Aiela. Aiela is already an insane card, and she is understatted: a 3 cost follower with 2/2 stats. So how is it fair that Sibyl has full stats, and provides ramp AND another effect? The power of redundancy also cannot be underestimated. In every expansion up until WD, Dragon has received a ramp card. The current form of Dragon runs a whopping 12 cards that ramp. And 3 of those provide ramp with no tempo loss.

Similar to Albert, her ubiquity is an obvious problem. 3x auto-include in every single Dragon deck. The cards that Dragon received in Wonderland Dreams and Starforged Legends are mostly bad, and I believe a big reason for that is because of Sibyl. The class basically cannot get any good mid and late game cards with Sibyl existing in her current state. So she definitely needs to get nerfed. But she is a legendary, so we can’t touch her stats and cost. The change I would suggest is to make her only gain +1/+1 stats on evolve. Sibyl was designed as a bridge for Dragon to transition from the mid game to late game, which is why she has that restriction of only ramping if played after the 5th turn. Her current form having 6 attack on evolve is actually quite problematic considering all the other effects that she provides, so this makes her a lot more fair. And if the Dragon player is ahead on the board, then nothing changes if she is just played without evolve.

Shadowcraft

Nothing! Before I would have Demonlord Eachtar, but he has already been nerfed to an acceptable level. Shadow is in my opinion one of the best designed classes in the game, and all of their cards are quite appropriate in power level with the exception of that one outlier.

Bloodcraft

Nothing again! If you asked me a few months ago, this section would have been a lot longer. Wonderland Dreams gave Blood a bunch of ridiculous, overtuned cards, but they have all been properly nerfed.

Havencraft

If you had asked me about a month back, I would have included Heavenly Aegis in here as a nerf candidate. It is true that the card is incredibly slow, but it is very poorly designed and has no counters once it comes down. At least until the Starforged Legends spoilers, where we actually are getting a counter in the form of Mister Full Moon. So Aegis is fine now.

Other than that, Haven does not really have any particularly overtuned cards that should be changed. I would like to see Tribunal go away at some point though. The card is very strong, but more importantly the RNG of it can be extremely frustrating to play with and play against. In many matchups, the card Iron Maiden ends up doing the exact same job more efficiently, which is why I think it is fine for us to not have Tribunal around forever.

Neutral

Then there is Alice, who is clearly the most overtuned card that was released in the Wonderland Dreams expansion. Kind of unbelievable that she has not already been nerfed. Then again, she is the poster legendary for the expansion. Most of the neutral synergy cards have absolutely insane effects for vanilla stats, so I think the intended drawback was in having to run more Neutrals than class cards. Since class cards tend to be stronger than Neutrals. But that has clearly not been the case, so Alice is totally busted. She has a Sage Commander like effect for a board AND hand, costs much less, and has vanilla stats.

Alice is a great example of the recent set design problems I was talking about earlier, with low cost strong fanfares. So my suggestion to change her would be:
Keep her as a 4 cost 3/4, but instead make her effect be locked behind an evolution. All of the Neutralcraft decks are inherently aggro because of Alice: her costing 4 encourages you to go 1st and curve out, and then play Alice on 4 to overwhelm your opponent in stats before evolutions come online. By making her +1/+1 effect locked behind evolve only, it should greatly improve the going 1st vs 2nd balance in Constructed. It also reduces the amount of one-sided games where a Neutral deck gets the 1-2-3 into Alice on 4. If Alice is changed this way, most Neutralcraft decks would change quite a bit. I imagine Goblins would be cut, and 1 drops in general would not be run anymore.

The last card I want to talk about is Bahamut. Bahamut is a ridiculous card when you compare him to HS’s Deathwing, who he was clearly inspired by in his card design. Because Shadowverse is a 20 life game compared to 30 life in Hearthstone, minions tend to have lower stats in Shadowverse. However, Bahamut is a 13/13 while Deathwing is a 12/12. On top of that, Deathwing has a huge downside of discarding your hand. Bahamut does not have that downside, but instead has a limitation of not being able to attack face if your opponent has two or more followers on the field. On top of that, you can run 3 copies of Bahamut in an SV deck, while Deathwing is limited to just one. So he is clearly overtuned. However, Bahamut is actually not run in a lot of decks because of how expensive he is. He is mainly run in Dragon because that class can cheat him out early with Ramp.

So… in terms of power levels, he is actually fine since there is only one class that can truly abuse him. However, the release of Bahamut in the RoB expansion pushed out many late game amulet based decks in the meta, like Elana Haven and Path to Purgatory Forest. With Bahamut around, all amulet based decks suffer, and I find that to be terrible considering amulets are one of the SV’s most unique selling points compared to other card games. So I would not change Bahamut, but at the same time I don’t think it is healthy for him to be around in the game forever. I would not mind if he gets taken out in the first rotation.