World Uprooted has been out for a month already and the mini expansion is well on its way, so I wanted to write about the decks that I am using in this Rotation meta. WU is weird: the meta is quite diverse in terms of decks and classes represented, but the gameplay experience is quite a bit worse than the previous expansion(which was excellent). I think part of it has to do with how prevalent Natur Al’machinus is, a Neutral card that enables cost reduced boards which is one of the most hated mechanics in the game. The other is that the current Tier 1 decks of the meta(Natura Dragon, Machina Blood, Natura Riley Rune) are extremely linear decks with noninteractive finishers. With that said, I am still having fun playing this meta since there are quite a few enjoyable decks that are not Tier 1.
Also due to the COVID19 lockdown, I now have way more free time so I have started streaming again! Mostly streaming Shadowverse and finally going through my backlog of visual novels.
Spellboost Shikigami Rune
This is a Spellboost based tempo deck that was made possible in the previous expansion Ultimate Colosseum with the various Shikigami cards. The main play pattern with this deck is to have a slow start just playing cheap spells to cycle through your deck and to control the board. Then at some point(ideally Turn 5), you make a huge tempo push with cost reduced Shikigami followers. The win condition is board based and it is rare to run out of steam due to the unrivaled card draw ability of Rune.
This deck is super fun, although it is not my favorite version of Spellboost(that would go to Solomon Raio and Spellburn from post mini Steel Rebellion and Rebirth of Glory). New additions from this expansion include Daria, Infinity Witch and Sorcery in Solidarity which both give the deck more draw power than before. Mystic Absorption is a card that comes and goes in list. The spell is actually pretty bad in a vacuum, as 3pp to remove a 2 health or less follower is below rate. However you do draw a card off it and there are quite a good targets in the current meta like Desert Pathfinder and Armored Bat.
Compared to the previous UC version of Shikigami Rune, the deck has much less reach with the rotation of Zealot of Truth. Twinblade Blade is not even half the card that Zealot was, so the deck is much more board based now. Because of this, a card like Mysterian Project that was often a 2-3 of in the old lists is now usually dropped completely because it went from having 2 good targets(Zealot and Kuon) to just one. So the deck has definitely gotten weaker, but I personally have a lot more fun playing the new version of it since the original deck sometimes had these dumb games where you just copied Zealot over and over.
Earth Rite Rune
My pet deck pretty much. Earth Rite in previous expansions was quickly becoming a wallet deck with tons of auto-include legendaries(many of which were from mini expansions, which are harder to open on average), so one of the most pleasant surprises from World Uprooted is in all of the great Earth Rite support at Bronze and Silver rarity. Earth Sorceress provides the deck the final bit of draw consistency it needed, Vergewalker Magician is one of the best Rune 2 drops ever printed, and Aethereal Golem is just a better version of Red-Hot Ritual/Witch Snap. And of course getting an actual 0 cost Earth Sigil is nothing short of amazing.
Unfortunately even with all of these great cards, Earth Rite is still very weak in the current meta. World Uprooted introduced a ton of strong defensive cards for several classes. In addition pretty much every deck in the meta(other than Spellboost Rune) plays healing cards which is bad news for Earth Rite. The deck is way more playable than it was last expansion but the meta has shifted in an extremely unfavorable direction for it.
The win condition of this deck is burn based. You would think that makes this an aggressive deck, but Earth Rite has a surprisingly awkward curve. In addition its follower quality is below par so it will often be playing from behind, which makes saving Vergewalker Magician for your evo turns is very important. The primary way to win is to setup big 4 sigil Magisa turns combined with the burn from Veridic Rituals. If the game goes on to Turn 8 and beyond, then Forbidden Darkmage gives you the final bit of burst damage to win the game.
I had a very memorable game playing as Dirt against the #2 ranked player(using Machina Blood) on ladder a while ago that I uploaded on my Youtube right here.
Avarice Natura Blood
One of the biggest surprises from World Uprooted is in this deck’s rise to prominence. Natura Blood has existed since Verdant Conflict, and while the deck was quite fun it was never good. Nerea is an amazing addition and quite possibly the best 6 drop in the game, but even I had doubts that she alone would have made this competitive. It turns out the answer was to shift the playstyle of this deck. Natura Avarice Blood has traditionally been a slow, grindy control deck but with Nerea alongside new cards like Vampiric Bloodbinder, Hellspear Warrior, and Garnet Waltz, it can now play as an aggressive midrange deck.
This is quite possibly the only competitive deck in Rotation that does not involve playing cost reduced followers in some way. This is a midrange deck, so it has a strong curve of followers with decent answers to everything. The deck wins through a combination of the board and the unrivaled reach of the Bloodcraft class. The new card Garnet Waltz pretty much allows Blood to have 6 copies of Lightning Strike, and it even has an upside in Vengeance. Many of the follower cards in this deck replace themselves, so it’s pretty rare to run out of steam.
For new players, this is definitely the deck that I would recommend the most. It is a very interactive deck with a decent skill ceiling, that also happens to be a great embodiment of what the Bloodcraft class is about. It’s true that decks like Machina Blood and Natura Dragon are stronger, but those decks are super brainless and don’t really help people improve. A bonus is that many of the cards used in this deck are also part of Unlimited Jormungand Blood, which is one of the best decks in that format right now.
Elana Machina Haven
Elana Haven is another classic deck from Shadowverse’s history. This new variant of the deck is the most radically different version of it, as it leans much more into the Machina side of things. Because of this, certain cards that used to be considered staples of the archetype are now gone like Golden Bell, Zoe, and Tender Rabbit Healer. The main gameplan of the archetype is still the same: generate huge boards through healing synergy. The difference is that now the key cards that assist in this gameplan are Natur Al’machinus, Limonia, and the new Robowhip Reverend. Elana is just a Plan B now, so some people even cut her down to 2 copies in this deck.
The deck is really hard and requires super high APM, especially once Limonia’s leader effect is active. Vice’s passive effect of giving rush to other Machina followers also eats up lots of time, so it is recommended to play this deck with battle animations turned off. I also made a deck video guide on Elana Machina Haven on my Youtube.
Modesty Artifact Portal
Easily my favorite new deck from this expansion. Artifact Portal is an old archetype that has almost always revolved around Acceleratium combined with 1 cost Artifacts to control the board. Absolute Modesty was a card printed during Verdant Conflict that encouraged a different playstyle of Artifact, where instead of focusing on the 1 cost artifacts(Analyzings and Ancients) you tried to play as many different ones as possible. This new variant never quite took off until this expansion. WU printed a bunch of cards that generate Paradigm Shifts, which are 7 cost spells that get cost reduced every time an Artifact dies. The spells allow you to summon your choice of 3 completely new Artifacts.
The new Artifact Portal is one of the premier midrange decks of the format. Almost every midrange deck of the past has contained a “Doctor 7”, or 7pp power card that created a big board and usually had an immediate impact by giving some followers Rush, like Demonlord Eachtar and Arthur. It is important for 7pp cards to be this strong because Turn 7 is usually when both players are out of evolution points. For Artifact, that 7pp card is Artifact Duplicator. Duplicator has existed since Rebirth of Glory, but has never been a playable card because it was really hard to consistently have 4 different artifacts destroyed by Turn 7. With the Paradigm Shift generators combined with the new spell Rebel Against Fate(which summons an Analyzing and a Mystic), it is now fairly trivial to meet that requirement.
The other big shift in the archetype’s playstyle is in how artifacts are even generated. The old lists tended to interact with resonance more, as you usually played certain cards that shuffled artifacts into your deck. You then had to draw them out of your deck using artifact searching cards, and then had to play them after. Because this process required a few steps, you would often fall behind on board so you were heavily reliant on using 1pp artifacts and giving them rush with Acceleratium to control the board. With the new Artifact lists, you just summon Artifacts directly, no questions asked. Because of this, Cygames has somehow achieved the impossible and created a competitive artifact deck that does not need Acceleratium at all.
It’s a pretty interesting shift in the archetype’s playstyle, although I will admit it makes the deck play more like a generic midrange list like most Sword decks of the past. One awkward thing about this deck is Absolute Modesty: her leader effect is extremely crucial in winning certain matchups, and combining her with a Turn 9 Vertex Colony is backbreaking for a lot of decks. However since the new deck does not play any artifact shufflers at all, her Accelerate now becomes completely useless. So every Modesty you draw after the 1st copy is a dead card. It feels bad to draw dead cards, but at the same time Modesty is so important to this deck that you need to run 3 copies to consistently find it every game.
Lovers Arcana Yamada Lvl99 