Uncategorized – Lovers Arcana Yamada Lvl99

Been a long time since I have posted here about Shadowverse, so I wanted to write a post about the decks that I am playing in the current Chronogenesis meta. I have been enjoying the Rotation format quite a bit as the pace has slowed down considerably. Some cards that saw little play in previous metas are now viable due to this change, like Purehearted Singer and Jungle Warden. The main gripe I have with the current Rotation format is the lack of combo decks. Forest and Rune are the two main combo classes, and their two primary combo cards(Roach and Dimension Shift) got rotated out and did not get any kind of replacements. Not that I expect a direct replacement or re-print, but one of the main appeals of Shadowverse is in how much it used to enable combo styles. Maybe there will be support next expansion.

Fast Earth Rune
A fairly straightforward and fun Midrange deck with a ton of burn damage and card draw. Compared to the pre-rotation version of Burn Earth Rite Runecraft, the deck loses some key reactive tools like 2 cost removal in the form of Red-Hot Ritual. As well as one of the best cards to swing the game during evolution turns, Timeworn Mage Levi. The loss of Dance of Death is also huge as the deck now struggles to get rid of big followers in the late game if Muta Bolt is not drawn.

Chain Lightning was a card that I severely underestimated during the Chronogenesis spoilers. I seriously thought it was just draft filler. Demonic Strike was already a bad card, and a very questionable inclusion in old Burn Earth Rune lists. “So why would anyone play a more expensive Demonic Strike”, is what I thought. Well it turns out that with the meta slowing down, spending 5pp to deal 3 damage is not a suicidal play. The ability of this card to recycle itself when your hand is low on cards is also super relevant, and of course there is the potential to deal 6 damage out of hand with it once Turn 10 arrives.

Magic Illusionist got nerfed in the first CG patch, with his health going down from 2 to 1. This is a huge nerf because it makes the deck’s early game significantly worse against Forest and Shadow. However this was a very smart nerf because one of the biggest complaints about Earth Rune was how oppressive it was against board based decks. And board based classes like Shadow, Forest, and Sword now have a much easier time dealing with Illusionist, as they are the ones most likely to play early game 1 attack followers. As a result, Magic Illusionist is no longer a 3 of, but he is still a decent card. He is just no longer an instant keep in the mulligan for every matchup. And against Forest and Shadow, it can sometimes be worth not playing him at all.

Mysteria Earth Rune
This is a very different take on Burn Earth Rite Runecraft. The deck slows down a lot and now has the combination of Mysteria Magic Founder and Silver Blade Golem as an end game win condition. Compared to Fast Earth Rune, this deck has a lot more draw and does not run Wizardess of Oz, so it operates on a nearly full hand most of the time. The mulligan decisions are also very different. Unlike Fast Earth Rune, this deck does not have that many Earth Rite activators, and the ones that are important are all 4pp or higher. Silent Laboratory and Karl are cards that both take up 2 board spaces right away, since they summon Earth Essences. So running out of board space is actually a huge deal with this deck. Because of this, you never keep 1pp sigils in the mulligan with Mysteria Earth Rune.

I have tried other variations of the deck that go all-in on the Mysteria + Silver Blade Golem combo, like KODAI’s list. But I have found them too inconsistent. So this is the version that has worked best for me. You can win against fast and midrange decks by just playing the standard board control game, and then the Silver Blade Golem can be used as an alternate win condition if the game drags on too long.

Illusionist(the 5 drop, not the 2 drop magician guy) is an underused card that has some great combo potential in this deck. She almost always guarantees a 2 for 1 when played on curve, and she gets some insane value if she ends up resurrecting a Professor of Taboos. I am going to be really sad when that card rotates out.

Daria Oz Rune
Daria Rune was an archetype that had a very unexpected resurgence in the Rotation meta. It was the top deck during RoB, and then fell out of the meta for the next 2 expansions. What happened? The deck has 2 big weaknesses against two types of decks: low to the ground aggro, especially decks who run tons of 1 drops and can go wide on board quickly. And secondly control decks with tons of board sweeping cards. Both of these archetypes got major support in TotG which kicked Daria off the meta. However in rotation, both of these archetypes got gutted. There is basically no aggro at all in Rotation, as most of the relevant early game cards either got nerfed or rotated out. The current fastest deck is Neutral Blood, and that deck has consistency issues. For the control side of things, big board clears like Themis Decree and Revelation got rotated out, so most classes do not have good answers to a highroll Daria curve.

So Daria Rune is a deck that needs a very specific meta to do well in. And that meta is the one observed in Rotation right now, where aggro is weak and big board clears are absent from many classes. The deck also got a huge boost with Mysterian Knowledge. The card does not seem very impressive, but it is a 1pp spell that generates another spell. And anyone who has played a Spellboost deck knows how insane that is. The spells that it can generate are pretty good too.

The current popular Daria list is one popularized by Nukoota, who was able to climb to 100k Grand Master points in the first season. It cuts the RoB era earlygame spellboost dudes(Craig and Clarke) for more spells and cycle, and also runs a ton of expensive cards like Enchanted Sword and Flame Destroyer. I am personally not a fan of this deck, because it feels super highrolly. I am a much bigger fan of Daria Oz, which is not capable of getting the same kind of insta-win highroll draws, but is much more consistent in the early game. And it does not low roll as hard.

Daria Oz Rune was a deck that I played a lot during Month 3 of Wonderland Dreams, and to this day I still think it was a hidden Tier 1 deck in that meta. It was one of the few decks that actually had good answers to Neutral Haven, the top deck during that time. Since Daria is a deck that can quickly run out of steam if it never draws its namesake, Oz is a great addition because she acts as an additional source of refuel. She also makes it less awkward to run those clunky expensive spells like Chain Lightning and Mutagenic Bolt.

Slow Midrange Shadow
Pretty standard Midrange Shadow core that was popular for the past few metas, adjusted for Chronogenesis. The deck’s gameplan is fairly straightforward: create a sticky board using cards like Prince Catacomb and Skeleton Prince, or awkward to trade into cards like Lurching Corpse. Get some chip damage in with your board of small dudes, and once your opponent’s health is low enough, turn your small dudes into threats with Demonlord Eachtar and finish the game. Aisha is a new card from CG that acts as an alternate win condition for Mid Shadow, as she turns into an instant 10 damage out of hand on Enhance in the late game if you have 10 Shadows available. And getting 10 shadows is fairly trivial with this deck.

Immortal Thane was a card that was recently nerfed from 7pp to 8pp. While he is still a good card, he is a bit too slow for this deck since he does not have an immediate impact on the board. So I have cut him completely, and added more early game cards to compensate. This slower list of Mid Shadow runs a decent amount of 4 drops, including Ceres who nowadays is a controversial inclusion. She used to be a 3x during the SFL meta, but that was because there was so much aggro. With much less aggro present in rotation, she is a lot weaker. However she is still awkward for some classes to deal with(like Sword), and I like her so I put 2 in this deck.

One of the biggest benefits that Mid Shadow got from Chronogenesis is the card Skull Ring. It is very similar to the recently rotated out Bone Chimera. The main difference is that it spawns 2 skeletons immediately, and has a Reanimate effect on death. This makes it so that curving out into Prince Catacomb on 4 is very strong. Getting a 2-3-Catacomb curve going 1st is often game winning.

Fast Midrange Shadow
Very similar to the previous deck, but running a much lower curve including 1 drops. Goblin is an extremely low value card, but it has amazing utility in Mid Shadow because of Catacomb and Skull Ring. Going 1st into a Goblin->2drop->3drop/Skull Ring->Catacomb curve is game winning. If you miss this curve, you have another opportunity to guarantee Catacomb value: right after the Skull Ring expires. Say you play Skull Ring on 3, but your opponent is able to clear your board immediately. On Turn 5, the amulet expires, and re-animates a random 2 drop. You can then play Goblin into Catacomb for instant value.

White Wolf Elephant Forest
In my opinion, one of the most fun decks in the current meta. It also uses the highest amount of cards that are legitimately good, but were not played much in previous metas because of the game being too fast. This includes cards like Purehearted Singer, Starry Elf, Jungle Warden, Venus, Loki, and of course King Elephant himself.

While Forest is the game’s main combo class, this is not really a combo deck. It is a control deck that has a huge source of out-of-hand burst damage for a late game win condition. Between Venus and Purehearted Singer, the deck has a decent amount of draw. It has great ways to control the board without Evo points using Cassiopeia and Insect Lord. It even has ways to remove giant threats with Crystalia Lily. The deck has two ways of generating huge burst damage: King Elephant and Jungle Warden. And Loki makes these even stronger. However it is sometimes very hard to find a good time to play Loki, since he is an 8 drop with no immediate impact on the board. So he is just a 1 of.

Aegis Control Haven
Havencraft was probably the most underestimated class of Chronogenesis. Out of all the classes, it was definitely the biggest loser going into Rotation, as most of its key cards were in Darkness Evolved. That expansion itself spawned 3 Haven archetypes: Seraph, Storm, and Elana. And none of these were getting replacements. It was also losing key cards like Themis, one of the strongest board clears in the entire game.

So a lot of people(me included) thought the class would be completely unplayable in Rotation. However much to my pleasant surprise, the class is quite strong. While it lost the most in Rotation, it also gained a lot from the new cards. The slowing down of the meta also made Heavenly Aegis a reliable endgame win condition again. A card that I greatly underestimated from CG spoilers was Gemstone Carapace. At first glance, it seems awful because it is worse than Beastcall Aria in almost every way. However, it has amazing synergy with Snow White, and can lead to some big powerspikes during the Evolution midgame turns.

The deck that I have here was very successful to me in the 1st month of CG. One of its main strengths was in having a great matchup against Earth Rune, one of the top decks at that time. This is because of the copious amounts of healing and banish effects in the deck. However Burn Earth Rune has been nerfed, and is now a rare sight on ladder. So this deck is a lot weaker now, and I think most Haven players are starting to shift to the more Midrangey Summit Temple/Heavenly Knight builds. I have not played with those enough to settle upon a decklist, but I will post that here when that happens.

Artifact Combo Portal
Portalcraft is the new class introduced with Chronogenesis. It has one of the most unique playstyles I have ever seen in any cardgame. It is also the most Johnny class of the game. Especially with Artifact Portal, once Deus Ex Machina and Acceleratium are set up, almost every big play the class makes is a highlight reel or epic sax moment. The class has two main archetypes: puppets, which are 0 cost 1/1s with Rush that die at the beginning of your next turn. These are great for board control, so Portal has many cards that create puppets, or can buff them with extra stats or effects while they are in hand. The other archetype is Artifact, which needs a separate explanation. The class also has a mechanic called Resonance, which is active whenever you have an even amount of cards remaining in your deck. Some cards have extra effects when you are in Resonance, and there are even cards that give your leader an effect in this state.

Currently there are 4 artifacts in the card pool. They include a 1 cost 2/1 who draws a card upon death, a 1 cost 3/1 Rush, a 3 cost 2/3 Ward who draws a card, and a 5 cost 4/3 Storm who draws a card upon death. Every single one of these cards is completely broken and undercosted for its effect. However Portal cannot actually put these cards into its starting deck. Instead, Portal has many cards that generate these artifacts upon play. However after generating them, the cards do not immediately go into your hand. They first get shuffled into your deck, and then you have to actually draw the artifacts to play them. Because Portal is constantly increasing the amount of cards in its deck, the class has way more draw and cycle power than other classes.

Artifact Portal to me is fascinating because it illustrates a very important lesson about card games. Anyone who has ever tried to get better at TCGs and CCGs knows about the importance of value and card advantage. However, no matter how good your deck is, you still lose if your life total reaches 0 before the opponent. There is no class in the game that can out-value Portal. Artifact Portal literally has more cards to play with. It’s not like these extra cards are bad too, we’s established that these artifacts are completely broken. While Artifact Portal is the king of value, it is actually really bad at killing the opponent. It also has very little in the way of good defensive cards, so it struggles against aggressive decks or decks with lots of burn.

One of the most important ways that Artifact Portal cycles through its deck is the legendary Deus Ex Machina. She is a 6 drop with a truly ridiculous fanfare: she gives your leader a permanent effect for the rest of the game. Everytime you play an artifact, you recover 1pp. Not only that, but if you end your turn on Resonance, you discard your hand and then draw 6 cards. Since Artifact Portal is constantly diluting its deck with artifacts, it is very important to get Deus Ex Machina out fast so that you can start drawing through your huge deck quickly. It is also important for the deck to have a lot of cards that can manipulate Resonance at will, since sometimes you will draw hands that you do not want to discard. Or maybe you will draw a garbage hand that you want to discard right away. Resonance can be manipulated with cards that change your deck size by an odd number, either by drawing 1 card or adding 1 or 3 cards to it.

The general gameplan of Artifact Portal is multi-faceted. The deck first wants to play the early game with standard followers who shuffle Artifacts into its deck. The deck then wants to draw the artifacts with the multitude of cycle available. It then wants to play the Acceleratium amulet, which gives all Artifacts rush and refunds 1pp everytime an artifact is played. Acceleratium allows the Portal player to control the board without Evo points by using artifacts. At some point in the game, the Portal player should play Deus Ex Machina to start cycling through the deck quickly. It should continue playing the board control game with artifacts, and if that is not enough to finish the game, then the Portal can play Safira with her Enhance effect. She is a 6 drop with Rush, who has an Enhance 10 effect of gaining storm and an attack value equal to the number of Artifacts destroyed during the match. Since Artifacts are the main way that this deck fights for board, the amount destroyed should be very high by the time Safira is played in the late game.

Deus Ex Machina is so important that some people say that the entire deck is built around her, and that Portal literally cannot win if she is never drawn. While she is definitely important, I do not think that games without her are unwinnable. They are just more difficult. The other key part of Artifact Portal’s playstyle is Acceleratium, so you can still win without Deus if you draw a ton of Artifacts + Acceleratium.

The deck I have listed is one based on LusciousXD’s list, after he went on a big winstreak with it recently. One of the most notable inclusions is Ironforged Fighter, the 4pp 4/3 who adds two Radiant Artifacts(the 4/3 Storm) to your deck. Originally most people either ran no 4 drops, or instead ran Gravikinetic Warrior. Gravikinetic Warrior at first glance is a far superior card, as it has stronger stats and an actual evolve effect. However Gravi Warrior shuffles random artifacts into your deck, while Ironforged Fighter only shuffles Radiant Artifacts. And the importance of Radiant Artifacts cannot be understated.

The reason is that Safira is used as this deck’s alternate win condition in the late game. Against faster decks, you try to win by outlasting them and fighting for board using Artifacts. Against decks like Dragon, you can never expect anything to stick on board after the mid game, so you need to rely on burst damage to win the game. Safira is the main source of burst damage, but due to the way Deus Ex Machina works, you might sometimes get unlucky and draw all Safiras early. So you will be forced to discard them to cycle through your deck. If this happens, then you need another way of winning the game. This is where Ironforged Fighter comes in. You shuffle the Radiant Artifacts in your deck, and then use Biofabrication to create more of them, and that becomes your alternate win condition.