It has been a very long time since I have done an in-depth writeup on a Shadowverse deck here. But the new version of Dirt Rune has been making a comeback in Rotation recently so I was motivated to write about it. If it is not already obvious from the fact that I have written about it twice before, Earth Rite Rune is my absolute favorite deck in Shadowverse. So I am very happy to see it back in the meta now after it became mostly unplayable from Dawnbreak Nightedge to Omen of the Ten.
The best way to describe the new Dirt Rune is a slow burn deck revolving around the synergy between Mysteria Magic Founder and Orichalcum Golem. The deck plays very differently than the Burn Earth Rite deck that was popular from Wonderland Dreams to Chronogenesis. The key difference is that in the Altersphere Rotation card pool, Earth Rune does not have a solid curve of followers. It does not have the high roll potential of T1 Sigil T2 Magic Illusionist T3 Karl T4 Halo Golem. Because the followers are so weak now, it has to rely a lot more on spells. It also does not have a way of steadily dealing 3 damage every turn like the Unlimited counterpart. This is where Mysteria Magic Founder comes in.
Mysteria was originally printed in Chronogenesis along with Silver Blade Golem, so the idea of combining her leader effect with burn spells and spells generated from Earth Rite effects has existed since then. There were 2 problems though, the first being that Silver Blade Golem was way too slow. I love the design of it, but even though it is an almost strictly better version of the old Rose Queen, it is still not good enough. And then the 2nd problem is Mysteria Magic Founder herself: she was so important to the deck, but there used to be no way of consistently drawing her. This all changed in Omen of the Ten which gave us Owen, who specifically draws a Mysteria follower from the deck. The mini expansion of Omen gave us Orichalcum Golem(pretty much a better version of Silver Blade), and with one new card from Altersphere the deck is finally a real player in the meta.
Core cards
3 Witch of Foresight
3 Owen, Knight of Mysteria
3 Magic Missile
3 Witch Snap
3 Silent Laboratory
3 Cagliostro, Adorable Genius
3 Vesper, Witchhunter
3 Mysteria, Magic Founder
3 Orichalcum Golem
3 Staff of Whirlwinds
Witch of Foresight – A 2 cost 1/2 who draws a random spell from the deck. Not flashy but very important to this deck, since spells are part of our burn win condition.
Owen, Knight of Mysteria – 2 cost 1/2 who draws a Mysteria follower from the deck, excluding himself. Incredible addition from OotT, he allows us to consistently draw into Mysteria Magic Founder since these two are the only Mysteria followers run in the deck.
Magic Missile – A basic card that mostly sees play in Spellboost. We play it here because we need all the draw we can get, and the ping is very useful since our early game followers are so weak. Also becomes stronger with Mysteria boosts.
Witch Snap – The primary new addition from Altersphere, 2 cost spell that deals 3 damage to an enemy follower and gives you an Earth Sigil in hand. Not fancy, but the importance of this card cannot be understated. 2pp deal 3 is premium removal, and non Spellboost Rune has wanted this kind of card for a very long time.
Silent Laboratory – Nothing fancy here, an Earth Sigil that summons either a 2/2 Zombie or Golem. It is our best statted 2 drop.
Cagliostro, Adorable Genius – One of the best designed cards ever. On her own, she is a 4pp 4/3 who summons an Earth Sigil. But if you evolve her, you regain 2pp and get an Ars Magna(2pp deal 3 damage, Enhance(4) Heal 3). So she is a slightly worse version of Old Levi, although the healing effect off Enhanced Ars Magna can sometimes be a life saver. Allows us to get easy 2-for-1s on the board during the evolution turns. But her main usage is in saving the Ars Magna for face damage since it gets buffed by Mysteria.
Vesper, Witchhunter – A very flexible card, can act as an Earth Sigil version of Magic Missile, or can have a pseudo Halo Golem effect where the 3 damage cannot go face. For the purposes of this deck, the Magic Missile accelerate mode is the one we will be using the most since we need all the early game pings that we can.
Mysteria, Magic Founder – 5 cost 4/4 who gives you the leader effect of having all spells deal +1 damage. One half of the primary win condition of this deck. We run a ton of weak spells that become amazing when buffed by Mysteria. Her leader effect stacks too, so the damage adds up very very quickly over time.
Orichalcum Golem – The other half of our primary win condition. Orichalcum Golem is a 5 cost 5/5(overstatted!) with a bunch of effects: he generates 2 Earth Sigils on the board on death, and then gets returned to your hand with his cost changed to 7. So he is essentially infinite value in a way. Then he has an Accelerate 1, where he performs Earth Rite: randomly generate a 2/2 Golem, deal 2 damage to the enemy leader, or add a Veridic Ritual for every Earth Sigil on the field. Veridic Rituals are already amazing with Mysteria, but since Accelerate counts as playing a spell, the deal 2 damage to face also gets boosted by Mysteria leader effect! The accelerate effect is unfortunately random, but honestly all of the outcomes are pretty strong. But since we are a burn deck, summoning Golems tends to be the least desirable effect.
Staff of Whirlwinds – A 5 cost spell that deals 3 damage to an enemy follower, and then deals 1 damage to every enemy. Almost like a weaker version of Swipe from Hearthstone. Honestly a terrible and clunky card, but becomes amazing when buffed by Mysteria. And since we can consistently draw Mysteria with Owen, this is not a problem. The important part of Staff is that the damage is dealt in two waves, so they are both buffed by Mysteria. So with one Mysteria buff, it deals 4 to one follower, and then 2 to all enemies.
So this is a total of 30 cards that are considered to be the core of Orichalcum Burn Rune. The last remaining cards are chosen depending on which matchups you want to be better in, primarily the slower ones vs the fast board based ones.
Supplemental cards
Scrap Iron Smelter – It might be weird to see a 1 cost Earth Sigil generator not be a core card but hear me out. The new Dirt Rune does not have any super important Earth Rite effects in the early game. The one you want to be using the vast majority of the time is the accelerate on Orichalcum Golem. So since it is not actually that important to put down Earth Sigils early on, this card is not that good since it is fairly low impact. With that said, it is still easy to fit into the curve and is very good at protecting early game followers.
Mysterian Knowledge – Even though we are not a full Mysteria tribal deck, this card can still be useful. Generatimg a Mysterian Missile gives us more burn, and generating a Mysterian Circle gives us a great 2 drop that also has synergy with Golems randomly generated from Silent Laboratory. I personally do not like playing this card in Dirt, but some people swear by it.
Goblin – Burn Earth Rune is inherently an aggressive deck, so Goblins are always a consideration. Also a very good inclusion to improve the matchup against fast board based classes like Forest and Sword.
Beastfaced Mage – A 2pp 2/2 who puts an Earth Sigil into your hand as a Clash effect. Honestly he is a terrible card and is a much worse version of the rotated Dwarf Alchemist. Most decks in the meta run lots of removal spells so in a lot of matchups he is just a 2/2 who gives you nothing. However he is still a 2pp 2/2, so it is worth considering him if you want to run a follower heavy build of this deck.
Rabbit Mage – A 2pp 3/1 who will summon an Earth Sigil if there is not already one on the board. A really awful card since 3/1 is a super awkward statline. However he can sometimes be better than Beastfaced Mage since you can find situations to guarantee the Earth Sigil. If you do run Rabbit Mage you probably do not want to run him with Scrap Iron.
Grand Spire – 2pp spell that deals 2 damage to an enemy follower, and with the Earth Rite upgrade deals 4 instead while also doing 1 to the enemy leader. Not a great spell by itself but becomes very good once you have a Mysteria played. It then becomes one of the only ways this deck can deal with big enemy followers after evos are gone.
Legendary Fighter – This card seems like a meme, but he actually has some great synergy in this deck due to all the cheap amulets and spells we run. Even without the combos he is still a 2pp 2/2, something you are never unhappy to play. If you run him, you pretty much have to also run Scrap Iron Smelter as a cheap 1pp sigil.
Slumbering Calamity – A new card from Altersphere, it is a 3pp 2/3 Ward who gains +2 attack as an Earth Rite. Then he also has an Enhance(8) of dealing its attack damage to all enemies. So with an Earth Sigil in play, he is basically a better Grimnir when Enhanced since he does the exact same thing on Turn 8 instead of 10. A really strong card, but surprisingly not core in this deck because our main win condition is spell based. In a lot of games, there are better things that you can do for 8pp. If anything it shows that the original Grimnir was actually a fair card… the main reason it got nerfed was because how hard Dragon could abuse him. How many more neutrals does Dragon have to ruin in this game with its degenerate design?
Veridic Discovery – Another new card from Altersphere, this is a 3pp spell that summons a Clay Golem, and then gives a +1 attack buff to all Clay Golems in play. Then if you have an Earth Sigil in play, it performs Earth Rite: put a Veridic Ritual in to your hand. In the worst case scenario this is a 3pp 3/2, which is unfortunately a very awkward statline. This card is very similar to Chain Lightning and even costs the same in terms of mana(3pp for the spell and then 2pp for the Ritual), but it has the potential of eating up two Earth Sigils. Some people swear by this card but I personally find Chain Lightning to be better. If you decide to run Veridic you should definitely be running more Earth Sigil generators like Scrap Iron and an additional 2 drop that gives you them.
Nova Flare – A 4pp spell that deals 2 damage to all followers on the field. In spell heavy, follower light versions of this deck, I like running at least 5 AOE spells. So if you are not running Calamity, Nova Flare is a good option. One of the good parts about Nova Flare is that it is a decent card even without the Mysteria boost. Very useful against classes who can swarm the board early like Shadow and Forest.
Chain Lightning – A 5pp spell that deals 3 damage to an enemy, and then the card gets returned to your hand if you have 3 or less cards in hand. Honestly a very clunky spell but very important to this deck since we need all the burn we can get.
General gameplan and mulligan
The ideal curve with this deck is to get exactly 2 Earth Sigils in hand before Turn 5. On Turn 5, you want to play and evolve Orichalcum Golem. It will most likely die giving you 4 Earth Sigils. Then on Turn 6, you play Mysteria and play the accelerated version of Orichalcum Golem. Ideally, the majority of the Earth Rite effects result in the enemy leader getting hit or you getting Veridic Rituals in hand. Then with the Mysteria leader effect in play, try to win the game in the next few turns with burn spells.
A common decision branch happens on Turn 5, where if you have both Orichalcum Golem and Mysteria, it can sometimes be hard to decide which one is best to play. In most situations it is better to play Orichalcum since it has much higher stats. However against fast board based decks, it is sometimes correct to play Mysteria over Orichalcum on 5. The main instance this is correct is when you have Nova Flare/Staff of Whirlwinds in hand, and you foresee that you will have to use it very soon.
The entire deck revolves around Mysteria and Orichalcum Golem, which makes them the two most important cards in the deck. Mysteria more so, since our burn spells are actually quite weak without her leader effect in play. This makes the mulligan very simple: we always keep Mysteria, Orichalcum Golem, and cards that can help us draw into them. This includes Owen, Magic Missile, and Witch of Foresight. Since this deck is extremely low curve with no card costing over 5pp, we are generally guaranteed to draw into a playable hand every game. So we do not have to worry about keeping certain cards based on going 1st or 2nd. The only exception I would consider is Cagliostro against fast board based decks since her evolve effect is amazing going 2nd.
As for decklists, I tend to prefer the heavy spell based variants of Dirt Rune over the heavy follower versions. Here is the decklist I use, which is very similar to the one Rain Drop Luck plays on stream.
Lovers Arcana Yamada Lvl99 