Notable cards leaving SV from RoB

Nephthys by SnaKing

The next Shadowverse expansion is coming out soon, and with that the Rise of Bahamut expansion will be rotating out from Standard. This expansion is fairly controversial and it is widely acknowledged that it raised the power level of the game significantly, for better or worse. I would say that it is the first expansion that had serious design mistakes with some of its cards. But on the other hand, post-nerf RoB(Month 3) was one of the best and most balanced metas that the game has ever had. So I wanted to talk about the cards that I am going to miss, and cards that I am happy to see leave.

Cards that I am going to miss

• Nephthys – Everything about this card is amazing. The art, the voicelines(both Japanese and English!), the deckbuilding challenge, the entrance animation. Did I mention the art? Who would have thought that the goddess of the underworld would be so THICC. Nephthys is one of the most unique Shadowverse cards ever printed, and spawned an entirely new archetype for Shadowcraft. I also have to credit Nep for giving a home to Mordecai the Duelist, a card that was competitively unplayable for the first two Shadowverse metas. It is pretty crazy how differently it plays from other Shadow decks, but still fits with the general class fantasy of being a necromancer. There were so many ways to build a Nephthys deck, and no one could ever agree on what the best build was. One of my all time favorite decks, and as a bonus it was one of the best ways to beat up those scumbag Dragoncraft players. Unfortunately, Nephthys has not been competitively viable at all since the release of Chronogenesis. In Rotation, Mordecai the Duelist is out of the format, so the archetype loses its primary late game win condition. And in Unlimited, the format is way too fast for Neph Shadow. I am a bit upset that Chronogenesis did not print some kind of Mordecai replacement to at least make Nep playable for her final moments in Standard, but I can kind of understand why. It seems that the new Burial Rite and Reanimate mechanics are being pushed for Shadow now, and making a new Mordecai probably would have broke them.
• White Wolf of Eldwood – Like Nephthys, White Wolf was another cool enabler for a bunch of other cards that saw little to no play. The issue here is that Forest is the class with the combo mechanic. It wants to play a lot of cards per turn. So it is hard to justify running high cost cards. White Wolf solves this problem with a tutor effect, and also makes the high cost card free so that it can still be used in combos. A really elegant way of pushing slower Forest decks. The White Wolf Silver Bolt deck that was popular in the post-nerf RoB meta is one of my favorite decks of all time, in any card game. It basically contains all of the things that I want in a deck: above average card draw, lots of different lines of play every turn, and having multiple win conditions(WolfBolt as the main wincon, and then Roaches as the alternate wincon). As new expansions came, White Wolf created even more decks. Wolf was also responsible for making the nerfed version of Homecoming(7pp) competitively playable for a period of time.
• Professor of Taboos – Probably one of the most well designed Shadowverse cards ever. This guy just screams flavor. The art, the voicelines. How his lore as a mad scientist trying to revive his dead daughter is reflected in his passive ability of summoning zombies whenever an opponent follower dies. The meta is not always right for him, and nowadays only the slower Earth Rune lists still run Taboo. But I am really going to miss this card.
• Crystalia Lily – The Enhance mechanic was first introduced in Rise of Bahamut, giving flexibility to a lot of low cost cards. Some of the Enhance cards would go on to be broken for being too good in both modes. But Lily is an example of a card that had just the right power, and I think she is the best designed Enhance card. If played for 2, then she is just a vanilla statted 2 drop. If played for 6, then she still is a 2 drop, but also transforms an enemy follower into a 1/1 Snowman. The Enhance is overcosted, but it is the flexibility that makes her great. She also gave an answer to one of Forestcraft’s problems, which was dealing with big minions.
• Goblin Mage and Fortunehunter Feena – Putting these two together because they serve a similar function. They were Shadowverse’s first competitively viable source of neutral card draw. The original version of Goblin Mage was too broken, as she specifically drew 2 drops, so it enabled Forest to run a super low curve Aggro deck with easy ways to draw into their Roaches. The nerfed version is a lot more fair, and still saw a decent amount of play in many decks for being a slightly understatted 3 drop with a cycle effect. Feena is a card that sounds extremely broken on paper, but ends up being quite balanced in SV. She is a vanilla statted 5 drop(4/5), who when evolved, gives you a 5/6, a 2/2, and a card draw effect(compared to most 5 drops evolving into a 6/7). Feena was especially strong in Forest because of her giving you the 0 cost Goblin Mage, so it could be used to power up Roach combos. In any case, I am really going to miss these two because I like sources of directed card draw. Feena also has an adorable voice, and is another instance of a Shadowverse card having great voicework in both English and Japanese.
• Selwyn’s Command, Art of the Ninja, Secrets of Erasmus, Pact with the Nethergod, Sadistic Night – Putting all of these together because of their similarity. Enhance was first introduced in RoB, and one of the ways that the mechanic was explored was in making some weak old cards playable. So some low cost spells were printed that when Enhanced, summon a follower. In these cases, the followers being Grand Archer Selwyn, Ninja Master, Erasmus, Pluto, and Beast Dominator. However, these new spells were not just powercrept versions of old cards. For example, if you really needed something on the board on Turn 5 for tempo, you can just play Beast Dominator. You cannot do that with Sadistic Night, since the Enhance costs 7. In the end, most of these new spells, like the original followers, saw very limited play. Selwyn’s Command was sometimes run in OTK Roach, and Pact with the Nethergod was a staple removal spell in Nep Shadow. I do like the idea behind these spells, so I would not mind seeing Cygames revisit this idea in the future.

Albert, Levin Saber by Mushimaro

Cards that I am glad to see are leaving

• Bahamut – Oh my god, fuck this card seriously. One of the biggest design mistakes of Shadowverse, it was clear from the moment this card was spoiled that he was far above the power curve. Shadowverse followers tend to have lower stats compared to Hearthstone minions, since in SV stats are balanced around players starting with 20 health, rather than 30. But Bahamut is an example of a card that is better than the Hearthstone card that it was clearly inspired by, Deathwing. Bahamut has 13/13 stats, a whole +1/+1 more than Deathwing. But not only that, he does not have the terrible downside of discarding your hand. He does have the downside of not being able to hit face if the opponent has 2 or more followers in play, but that restriction is easily overcome by the point in the game this card comes down. I feel like Cygames intentionally overtuned this card because of Bahamut’s lore as a world-destroying dragon in the RoB lore, as well as being the company mascot. Bahamut is one of the cards that is most responsible for making Ramp Dragon absolute cancer to play against as a board based deck. He has been nerfed recently to a 9/9, but is still way too strong, which really shows just how obscenely overpowered he was in his original design.
• Albert, Levin Saber – Like Bahamut, Albert is another grossly overtuned card. Albert is an example of a badly designed Enhance card, as not only does he get the flexibility of Enhance, he is way too strong in both modes. Although to be fair, in the current cardpool, his Enhance is actually quite fair compared to all of the other finishers that other classes have. The issue is how obnoxiously strong he is when played for 5. This has allowed many Sword decks in past metas to just curve Storm units one after another starting from Turn 3. Albert is so far above the curve that he is an auto-include in every single Sword deck, whether it is aggro, midrange, or control. That is the definition of unhealthy since it means that when building a Sword deck, you are not really making a 40 card deck. You are deciding on 37 cards, because 3 slots are automatically given to this grossly overtuned card.
• Sahaquiel – Sahaquiel was an interesting card from RoB, who had a very cute interaction with Lucifer. It wasn’t until TotG that the card became problematic because of Ramp Dragon comboing it with Zell and various high cost Neutral cards like Israfil. The interaction between Sahaquiel and Israfil has always been strong, but it was not until Rotation happened that it became glaringly obvious. Basically around 75% of Control decks or decks that cared about going into the late game ran the Neutral package of Saha-Isra-Baha. So I will not miss this card, even though it is not exactly overpowered. Just way too ubiquitous in the CG rotation meta. Not a fan of cheating out high cost followers and playing them earlier than intended.
• Lyrial, Angel of the Word, Gourmet Emperor Khaiza – Grouped all of these together because they are a core part of the Neutral early game package. None of these cards are overpowered or badly designed, and Khaiza in particular is actually pretty interesting. But there have been metas in the past where a good half of the competitive decks were running these cards(like Wonderland Dreams), and even in the current meta it is boring to see all these decks running the same early game cards. Wonderland Dreams is the official “Neutralcraft push” expansion, but honestly Rise of Bahamut was just as responsible because of the aforementioned early game Neutrals as well as Sahaquiel.
• Breath of the Salamander – Like Albert, another example of a badly designed Enhance card. 2pp deal 3 is already premium for removal, but on top of that if you Enhance it for 6 it turns into one of the best board wipe spells in the game: deal 5 to one follower and then deal 2 to the rest. The card was just too strong in both modes. I know that part of Dragoncraft’s class identity is area of effect damage, but Breath of the Salamander just did way too much.
• Lurching Corpse, Necroassassin, Tribunal of Good and Evil – Rise of Bahamut was the expansion where there was a notable increase in cards that affected the board with an RNG element. In these cases, destroying enemy followers at random. In many matches, the RNG could be controlled somewhat, but when it could not be controlled, then the outcome could greatly decide games. And I am not a big fan of games or board states decided by a coinflip. These 3 cards are not particularly overpowered, but I think Shadowverse will be a much better game without low cost RNG removals.

After writing this, I realize now that I am pretty excited for the upcoming rotations in both Shadowverse and Hearthstone. There are so many cards I hate that are leaving the formats. I am sad to lose N’Zoth and White Wolf, but it is worth it to never have to see cards like Dirty Rat and Bahamut ever again.

Magic Owl

Magic Owl was an inconspicuous little bronze card that was released during the Starforged Legends expansion. Most people thought it was good when spoiled, though limited in usefulness because of its effect requiring an evolution. It was clearly a better version of an existing card called Spectral Wizard, which never saw any competitive play.

Fast forward to now, and it is clear that Magic Owl has been one of the most impactful cards ever released for the Spellboost archetype. The owl is mentioned a lot whenever people talk about possible nerf candidates. The card is obviously strong now, and the effect that it has on how Spellboost decks are built is just unbelievable. It is not just a matter of the decks finding ways to fit in the Owl; they are built completely different compared to the way they used to be, just to fully utilize Magic Owl’s effect.

I’ll start off with Dimension Shift Rune as an example, since it was my main ladder deck for a long time in the past. I climbed from A Rank to Master using a combination of mostly DShift Rune and Elana Seraph Haven during the Darkness Evolved and Rise of Bahamut metas. Here is an example of a typical DShift deck during these metas.

Tech cards include Angelic Barrage and Summon Iceform

Playing so much Shift, it was very clear what the strengths and weaknesses of the deck were. If you could survive until Turn 8-9, you auto win against most decks in the game. So the issue is being able to get to that point in the game, which is why DShift’s biggest weakness has always been aggro. Now take a look at a typical DShift deck during the Starforged Legends meta.

“What is this garbage”. That was my reaction when I first saw the stock lists for SFL era DShift. I imagine that if you showed this list to anyone who played the deck back in DE/RoB era, they would have a similar reaction. SFL Month 2 was pretty much the peak of DShift Rune’s power in Shadowverse’s history. Apparently the answer to DShift’s weakness is to… make the deck even worse against aggro? Look at this list! It doesn’t run any real 2 drops(I know Magic Owl is a 2 drop but you are supposed to wait for the midgame to play it for the evolve). Timeworn Mage Levi, one of the most powerful Rune cards ever printed and the class’s best anti-aggro tool, is completely absent. The list even runs 3 copies of Commence Experiment, a terrible card that has never seen any competitive play before SFL. So what happened?

The answer is that Magic Owl completely changed the way that DShift was built. Having access to a cheap way to get a double spellboost on your hand allows the deck to be more greedy. When you think about it, playing and evolving an Owl is almost like playing it for free in the future, since it costs 2 and reduces spellboost cards in your hand by… two. Chimera was a card that was released during Tempest of the Gods, and saw absolutely no play in that meta because it was too clunky. Owl enables the usage of that card in this deck.

So the way DShift changed was to become even weaker against aggro, but greatly increase its combo potential. Things like getting Turn 6 or Turn 7 DShifted were not at all uncommon in this meta. As you might be able to tell from my tone, I did not like the way the deck changed. I had already stopped playing DShift in the Wonderland Dreams meta, but I vastly preferred the older, more stable builds of the deck rather than the highrolly one that it morphed into.

Now for the other Spellboost deck, Daria. Here is a typical list from the RoB meta.

Tech cards include Summon Iceform, Demonic Strike, and Angelic Barrage

When Rise of Bahamut first came out, a ton of people experimented with Daria since it was one of the easiest decks to build. I saw a lot of terrible and greedy versions, with people running 3 copies of Flame Destroyers, Wind Blasts, and even Rune Blade Summoner. Eventually the above list was settled upon for being the most consistent, with Daria as the only expensive card to minimize bricking.

Now fast forward to the current meta in Chronogenesis.

Again, what is this garbage. Admittedly, the new Daria is allowed to be greedy because of the slower pace of Rotation compared to RoB. But still, the deck looks ridiculous. The fact that a tempo deck will actually run a 3 mana do nothing(Concentration) is insane. There are now 8 cards that cost 7 or more. And this list I linked is a standard one; I have seen people run Flame Destroyers on top of all these other expensive cards.

But yes, Magic Owl is what allows the new Daria to be so insanely greedy compared to the RoB version. The brick potential of having at least 8 high cost cards is offset by the highroll potential of cost reducing them all efficiently with Owl. It is almost like we’ve gone backwards. People initially figured out that putting in Flame Destroyers(and other high cost cards) alongside Daria made the deck too bricky, so the answer was to take them out. And now they are being put back in because of the Owl enabler. Owl(and Mysterian Knowledge) have greatly sped up the deck. Back in RoB, getting a T5 Daria was considered to be highroll, and the Daria was usually played for the full 5pp, and the highroll was seeing if she would draw any Oglers. Now, T5 Daria is still highroll, but Daria is often played with a bunch of cards in the same turn, like an evolved Owl and other free spellboost followers.

Owl is definitely broken, but honestly I am more ok with it compared to the other broken cards we have seen from Shadowverse in the past. Particularly from Tempest of the Gods and Wonderland Dreams, most of the broken cards from those sets had strong effects attached to a Fanfare. So it was just guaranteed value no matter when you played it. The meta had gotten so fast that you could no longer play 4 or 5 mana do nothings anymore. Every card played needed to have some kind of immediate effect(like Sibyl, Big Knuckle Bodyguard, Alice). So in the future, maybe cards do not need to be as ridiculous as Owl, but I am fine with having strong effects requiring an evolution.