Negishi
Brigade of the Sky is out, and just like my previous post for Dawnbreak Nightedge, I wanted to make a compilation of viable budget decks in the current Rotation meta!
My criteria for budget decks is that bronzes, silvers, and golds are all fair game. There can only be a maximum of 3 copies of 1 legendary, and the legendary must be a meta or class defining one. This is to ensure that the vial investment will be worth it, as if the deck falls out of favor in the future, the legendary can still be used in other decks. The reason I go with this system is that there has been a general rarity creep in Shadowverse over time, with important cards being printed at gold/legendary. Many classes are completely neutered without access to these cards.
One thing I have to mention here is that this could not have been written without the assistance of Prepcoin! The members of his Discord server have diligently been compiling all decklists that have reached Grandmaster in a Google Document. It is a wonderful resource, and many decks from this post have been lifted from it.
Forestcraft
Aggro Forest
The deck that was Tier 1 in the DBNE mini expansion meta is still really strong in BotS. Aggro Forest only lost Beetle Warrior from the rotation of Tempest of the Gods, and people were already cutting that card in some lists. This deck has been consistently high tier or better since the Starforged Legends meta, so it is a decent investment. Some variant of Aggro Forest will probably be viable forever given how the class mechanics work. This particular deck featured is a proven one, as you can see from Prepcoin’s GM decklist catalog that 5 different players have reached Grandmaster with this exact list.
The gameplan of this deck is quite simple: over 3/4ths of the deck consists of cards that cost 2 or less, so you will always get a good start. Go wide on board with fairies and get a lot of chip damage in. Elf Song can be used to buff your board, and the Enhance(5) on Leafman provides a board wide attack buff and also protects it from spell and effect damage. Wood of Brambles makes a board of fairies extremely awkward for your opponent to trade in to, and since we are running 3 Starry Elves, we are practically guaranteed to draw into multiple copies every game. Insect Lord and the evolve on Rayne allow you to make insane tempo plays to stay ahead on the board. Ipiria is the curve topper which is very awkward for most decks to deal with, thus representing a source of guaranteed 5 damage. If Ipiria is not enough to win the game, then Fairy Driver and the Skystride Raptors from Falconer act as your Storm finishers.
The best part about this deck is that it’s not a sub-optimal version of a meta deck, with budget substitutions. This is the real meta version of Aggro Forest, making it one of the cheapest competitive decks. Insect Lord is the only legendary in this deck, and it is a 3 of. However it is a legendary that is used in basically every Forestcraft deck, so it is a great craft if you are interested in playing the class.
Swordcraft
Aggro Sword
A pretty degenerate deck, Sword has the highest amount of non-interactive mechanics in the game with both Storm and Ambush, and this deck is built to abuse that. Gameplan is very simple: curve out, go wide on board and send everything face unless there is something stopping you from doing so. This deck runs a super low curve with 9 different one drops so you will always get a good start.
Sky Commander Celia is the only legendary here, and she is a 3 of. She is an important source of reach for this deck and also happens to be an auto-include in every Sword deck right now. So she is a great investment if you have any kind of plans on playing Sword in the long term. If you want to upgrade this deck, many people also run some combination of Legendary Fighter, Zeta, and Latham in the optimized versions of Aggro Sword. So I would focus on those as possible upgrade paths.
Runecraft
Spellboost Rune
The only real combo deck on this page, this is the deck I recommend for budget and/or new players who enjoyed playing the likes of Miracle Rogue and Freeze Mage in Hearthstone. The primary gameplan of this deck is to try to get Giant Chimera into your hand as soon as possible, and then cycle through your deck efficiently while removing enemy threats. Almost 3/4s of the deck consists of spells, and spells power up your Giant Chimera damage through its Spellboost effect. It is extremely important to learn proper sequencing when playing this deck due to the Spellboost mechanic. You should generally always draw first to ensure that the maximum amount of cards get the Spellboost benefit. Against slower decks, the main win condition will be to one-shot them with Giant Chimera. Against faster decks, going for Giant Chimera is usually too slow so you actually want to mulligan for Flame Destroyer instead. You will be aiming to get a big swing turn where you remove your opponent’s board and play low cost(or even 0 cost) Flame Destroyers simultaneously.
Giant Chimera is the only legendary in this deck and will probably be a staple in all Spellboost based decks in Rotation until it rotates. If you want to upgrade this deck, the first priority craft should be Runie, Destiny’s Bard. Runie adds several things to the deck, and is flexible since she is a Choose card from Dawnbreak Nightedge. First, Runie provides an extra way of drawing 2 cards, which improves consistency. Second, Runie can be used to generate Prophecy of Doom which is an alternate win condition in situations where you cannot draw your Giant Chimera early enough.
Dragoncraft
Aggro Dragon
This deck has gotten quite a bit weaker since DBNE since Dragon lost Phoenix Rider Aina and Dragoon Scyther in Rotation, but it is still good enough to do dailies with. The gameplan of this deck is pretty similar to most other aggro decks: go wide fast, and push face damage. Aggro Dragon has followers like Dragon Aficionado and and Basilisk Rider who are very awkward to deal with, so they have a high chance of surviving a turn. Which allows you to aggressively evolve for extra face damage. Hippogryph is a unique card that gets stronger every time a friendly follower attacks, so she benefits greatly from keeping a wide board. It may seem weird for an Aggro deck to be running a 10 drop like Azi Dahaka, but its cost reduction on evo effect is quite relevant.
Azi Dahaka is the only legendary in this deck, while Aiela and Force of the Dragonewt are the only golds. These cards are core to pretty much every competitive Dragon deck in Rotation so they are good investments if you want to play this class. Unfortunately this is probably the weakest deck on this page, even though it is good enough to complete dailies with. If you want to upgrade this deck, it is best to play a different Dragon deck altogether like Jabberwock or Ramp. Or you could instead play Aggro Dragon in Unlimited, where it is actually one of the strongest decks in the format and runs Forte as the only legendary.
Shadowcraft
Shadow was one of the weakest classes in the DBNE meta, and unfortunately things have not gotten any better in BotS. Not only that, but all of the semi competitive Shadow decks require several legendaries to function, so I cannot post any decks here. Technically it is possible to build a budget Hinterland Ghoul deck, but that would be breaking my rule of having the legendaries be class defining ones.
Unlimited however is a different story. Midrange Shadow is a great deck there, and has Demonlord Eachtar as the only legendary. Eachtar was un-nerfed back to his original broken form which allowed this deck to enjoy a huge resurgence.
Bloodcraft
Aggro Bat Blood
An old classic, Aggro Blood returns once again in the BotS meta. This deck was lifted straight from Utloc1, who climbed to Grandmaster with it.The deck got some support with Bewitching Succubus this expansion, who is a standard 2 drop but can be Enhanced for 4 to generate some bats. Losing Baphomet was quite a big blow to Bloodcraft decks. As a result, we can no longer go all in on the Oldblood King combo since there is no way to guarantee that he gets drawn. The gameplan of this deck is to go wide on the board quickly and push face damage aided by the unrivaled reach and out-of-hand damage of the Bloodcraft class. The deck has two optimal Turn 5 plays: if you have a lot of followers, you can play Buller in her Dark Maiden form to buff your board and push a ton of damage. If you do not have a board, but have a bunch of bat generators in hand, then you can play and evolve Oldblood King, and proceed to do stupid amounts of face damage next turn.
Carabosse is the only legendary here, but she is rotating out next expansion. If you do not have the vials, she can be replaced with the 3rd copy of Purehearted Singer and another aggressive card like Nightmare Devil or Angelic Knight.
Havencraft
Holy Lion Haven
This is one of the strongest decks in the current meta, and can be played with no legendaries! Lion Haven was an archetype that first began to be supported in DBNE, but it did not take off for consistency reasons. In BotS, that problem has been solved as Haven has received another Lion crystal generator in the form of Prism Swing. Haven also got Sealed Tome, which is essentially a 0pp draw a card in its base form, allowing the class to run a 37 card deck. The curve of this deck is crazy: it looks like an aggro deck as it only contains cards that cost 3pp or less. The gameplan of this deck is to efficiently use your pp every turn to upgrade your Lions as fast as possible. Lions start as 2/2s, eventually upgrade to 4/4s, and finally become 4/4 Storms. This gameplan is greatly aided by drawing Temple of the Holy Lion early, as it gives a 1 playpoint refund every time you play a Lion crystal. Even when not upgraded, this essentially means that you are playing 1pp 2/2s, so the value adds up very quickly. The Enhance(5) effect of Holy Lion Crystal allows you to go infinite, so it is important to conserve your crystals if you notice that you are running low on them in your hand. Father Punishment is a card that looks like a meme, but he is actually amazing in this deck. Due to the low curve of this deck and to the pp refund from Temple, it is not hard to efficiently squeeze in 1pp to kill anything on the board.
If you want to upgrade this deck, most versions of Lion Haven run some combination of Snow White, Jeanne, and Legendary Fighter. Since Snow White is from Wonderland Dreams, she will be rotating in the next expansion, so I would prioritize Jeanne and Legendary Fighter over her. Jeanne gives the deck an efficient way of answering Sword’s Arthur boards. Legendary Fighter looks like a meme, but has a lot of synergy with this deck since there are so many cheap amulets and spells. In the late game, it is not hard to turn him into a 2pp Dragoon Scyther.
Portalcraft
Artifact Combo Portal
A deck that was fairly strong in the early parts of DBNE, you can still play it now with almost no new cards added. BotS gave very little to Artifact Portal, as most of the support was given to Puppet Portal instead. The only new card added is Seraphic Blade, which finally gives Portal a way to answer one of the most backbreaking cards against its gameplan: Wood of Brambles. This particular list was piloted to Grandmaster by tokaku, with just a slight difference in the amount of Biofabrications and Substitutions used. It is hard to describe the general gameplan of Artifact Portal as this is one of the most complicated decks to play in the game. It is a mixture of a combo and control deck, and the majority of matches will be spent controlling the board using Artifacts, which are generated and shuffled into your deck by many followers. Acceleratium is one of the most important cards, as it gives all Artifacts rush as well as a 1pp refund, allowing you to save evo points. The deck has a lot of way of generating artifacts and drawing them directly, and at some point Deus Ex Machina should be played, which allows you to cycle through the deck very quickly. If the game goes on too long, then an Enhance Safira can be used to close out the game. In cases where all Safiras are discarded early, then using Biofabrication to copy Radiant Artifacts can be done as an alternate win condition.
Deus Ex Machina is the only legendary needed here at 3 copies. She will probably be an auto-include in all Artifact Portal decks until the end of time, so this is a great investment if you like the class. This is pretty much the standard version of Artifact Portal, so there is no real way of upgrading it. If you have extra vials, you can experiment by replacing Safira with Silva. Silva provides another way of giving stuff Rush in this deck, and allows you to slowly burn down the opponent by doing what this deck does best: controlling the board. Magna Legacy is a card that shifts in and out depending on how many board centric decks are dominating the meta.
Lovers Arcana Yamada Lvl99 