Mistakes that SV Worlds Beyond should avoid

Storm Over Rivayle, the beginning of the end for Shadowverse.

This post was originally titled “Reasons I stopped playing Shadowverse”, but I put off writing some parts for a long time and got busy with other things. Recently, there was the announcement of SV: Worlds Beyond, which is effectively Shadowverse 2. It will be a reboot of the game and will have a different ruleset, so everyone will start fresh. It was also announced that both the original SV and Worlds Beyond will continue to be developed. However it is pretty clear that the focus of the SV team’s resources in the future will be on Worlds Beyond, so this will be a slow sunsetting of the original SV.

So in light of this news I have decided to instead re-frame the post as a summary of some pitfalls that I hope the new SV will avoid, instead of making this a huge rant about why I stopped playing the game. The SV team has a lot of experience now between developing the original SV, making the Switch game Champion’s Battle, and even making the paper version of the game SV Evolve. So I hope they can learn from their mistakes and make Worlds Beyond the best game it can be.

About me, I started playing Shadowverse right when it released in the tail end of 2016. Worlds Beyond is set to come out in the middle of 2024, so that means the original SV will have lasted for about 8 years. The game had a pretty good run, and during the years I’ve played many card games; SV is the only one that has held my interest and it’s the one that I’ve been willing to keep up with. Things weren’t always perfect, but I feel like the direction of the game was overall fine… until 2020. Specifically, until the release of the Storm over Rivayle expansion in September 2020. In my opinion this expansion was the beginning of the end for SV, and was the starting point of many of the issues that make modern SV the mess that it is today.

I stopped playing SV at the start of 2023 with the release of the Azvaldt expansion. But even when not playing, I was still subscribed to some SV streamers so I was able to keep up with the state of the game. With this, I would say that SV went through 3 phases:

• the classic era from the start to Omen of the Ten(2016 – 2018)
• the 2nd era marked by leader effects and the blurring of lines between midrange and OTK decks. This was from Omen to Rivayle(2018 – 2020)
• the bad Modern era from Rivayle and beyond(2020 – present)

While there were things from the 2nd era that bothered me, the game didn’t really start nosediving until the Modern era. So I would like to identify the key issues from Rivayle onwards that characterize modern SV.

It’s worth mentioning that we know the SV team works about 6 months in advance for releases. Since new expansions are released every 3 months, this means the team is always 2 expansions ahead. Going by this time reference, this means that Rivayle was likely the first expansion to be developed entirely during the COVID19 pandemic.

(Bad) shift in card design

In the Shadowverse and card game communities, there is a common term called “vanilla stats”. It indicates the full stats that a follower(creature) with no abilities should have. For example, in SV a 1 cost follower would be a 1/2(1 attack and 2 health), a 2 cost follower would be a 2/2, etc… If a follower had some kind of premium ability, it would have reduced stats. And in SV, it would sometimes not gain the full +2/+2 stats for evolving.

Example: Priest of the Cudgel was a Havencraft card commonly played in the first few SV metas. It has an evolve ability to banish an enemy follower with 3 health or less, which is effectively the Haven spell Blackened Scripture. Because of this evolve ability, it only gains +1/+1 when evolving. Similarly, Karyl was a Runecraft card that saw a lot of play when she was available in Rotation. She has a powerful Fanfare(on play) ability AND a powerful evolve ability. Since she’s a 6pp 4/6(when the vanilla statline for 6pp followers is 6/6), she takes a hit in stats AND only gets +1/+1 when evolving.

Priest of the Cudgel and Karyl, Catty Sorceress. Examples of the old SV design philosophy where followers with premium abilities would get a stat reduction.

In Rivayle this basic philosophy was thrown out of the window. We started off by getting fully statted followers with premium abilities on them, no conditions required. Now we get fully statted followers with upside after upside. Cards no longer have downsides, and it feels like every new follower is an opportunity for the developers to cram as many abilities as possible into them.

Just look at Georgius. This card has 3 premium abilities on it, and yet has full vanilla stats and full evolve stats. This kind of nonsense card design has infected all of modern SV.

Georgius. Why on Earth does this fully statted 4 drop have 3 abilities on it

Merging of finishers and removal

The most egregious example of bad modern SV card design lies in the finishers. Like the name implies, finishers are cards that are commonly used to end the game. In SV, finishers usually end the game by dealing a large amount of face damage to the enemy leader, and this is typically achieved with Storm or burn cards. Storm is SV’s version of the Magic keyword Haste, allowing followers to attack the turn they are played, while burn cards are usually spells that deal direct damage to the enemy leader.

As SV is a very Hearthstone inspired game, it does not give players the ability to respond during their opponent’s turn. Which means that you can’t “counter” cards the way you would in a game like MtG. So instead you counter them by playing proactively or by playing certain cards in anticipation of your opponent’s finisher. The way you are supposed to beat Storm cards is to play followers that have the Ward keyword on it, since that keyword forces enemy followers to target them before anyone else. Burn spells do not get stopped by wards, but they do not put any stats on board. So the way to beat burn cards is to create a big board. The burn player would love to throw all the burn spells at face, but doing that means conceding the board to the opponent. They might have to reconsider that if ignoring the opponent’s board could lead to a loss next turn from the backswing.

So finishers have their place, and there is nothing inherently wrong with them. The game is known for having big flashy finishers, and it’s kind of Shadowverse’s brand by now. Cards like Dimension Shift and Rhinoceroach were part of the Classic set after all.

The issue is that in modern SV, storm and burn cards all have removal stapled on to them. Since you can’t act on your opponent’s turn, this removes any semblance of counterplay that a game like SV could have. You can’t stop storm cards because all the stormers kill the board anyway. In some cases, putting up a board makes you take MORE damage. The burn player doesn’t need to worry about the consequences of ignoring the opponent’s board, because the burn spells conveniently delete the board at the same time. In old SV, players often had to make decisions on whether to push their gameplan(dealing face dmg) or to slow down and respond to the opponent’s board state. The modern cards do everything simultaneously so this there is no longer any decision making.

Vengeful Sniper, an example of a burn card that kills the board and Absolute Tolerance, an example of a storm card that kills the board.

Removal is unplayable

One of the consequences of all these followers having removal attached to them is that nobody plays actual removal spells anymore. As in, reactive cards that can only target the opponent’s cards. Other than SV, I’ve played a lot of card games over the years(Hearthstone, MtG, Eternal, LoR, etc…), and powercreep is one of those things that is inevitable. It happens to every CCG because card games often start with simple card designs to ease everyone in, and as the developers play around with the design space things will naturally become more complex over time. If this complexity goes unchecked, then you could get a Yu-Gi-Oh situation where all the cards have literal paragraphs of effect text.

So powercreep is inevitable, but is there a specific tipping point where it becomes excessive? A good litmus test I’ve seen is that in a specific meta, the powercreep has gone too far if removal is not being played. In modern SV, no one plays removal because it’s better to play proactive cards that have removal stapled on to them. This is worrying because out of all the CCGs I’ve played, Shadowverse easily has the best removal I have ever seen. For example, Fiery Embrace in old SV was traditionally one of the most complained about cards in the game. Because of its cost reduction effect, it was a removal spell that was very often played for 0 play points. And yet, the card has not seen any competitive play for the past 3 years. Similarly, Forest has a card called Feral Awakening, which is a 1pp spell that destroys a follower with 4 attack or less. Most followers up to 4pp have at most 4 attack, so this is effectively a 1 cost card that can kill anything that costs up to 4. It’s insane mana efficiency, and yet still this card doesn’t see any play.

Fiery Embrace and Feral Awakening. Don’t be fooled by the base 8 cost of Embrace, it’s usually played for 0 mana.

A literal 0 cost removal spell seems pretty broken in a vacuum, but in the context of modern SV it’s still a card that only does one thing. Even worse, it’s a pure reactive card, as it can only be played if there is an enemy follower on board. Why would anyone play Fiery Embrace(a card that does 1 thing) when cards like Wilbert, Luminous Paladin exist? Wilbert is a card that has Fiery Embrace stapled on to it, additionally creates a 3/5 Ward, a 1/2 Ward, and also activates a permanent face damage effect on the enemy leader for the rest of the game. This is where SV is right now.

Another consequence of all these modern cards just being fully statted followers with removal stapled on to them is that it pushes for all decks to have OTK(one turn kill) finishers. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with OTKs, but every single modern SV deck relies on big out-of-hand damage to win the game. Strategies that involve building a board and then leveraging a board advantage are not viable because all of the new cards just delete the board for free.

Drazael, Ravening Enforcer and Marwynn, Repose of Despair. Examples of how everything in modern SV is just removal on a stick.

Card games are more interesting when you make more decisions. These range from deckbuilding decisions to actual in-game decisions. Deckbuilding decisions can include struggling to fit in the right amount of proactive vs reactive cards. In-game decisions are self explanatory, but in the context of removal they can include situations like not using it early, saving it for a big tempo swing. There is also playing around removal: for example, it’s your turn and you have a 3/2, 3/5 and 2/3 and your opponent has a 3/3. Normally the correct play is to make the value trade with your 3/5, but if you know your opponent’s deck has a 3 dmg AOE card, it can sometimes be worth making the suicide trade of the 3/2 into the 3/3 so that your board survives the potential AOE. You saw these kinds of plays all the time in old SV, sometimes involving people pre-evolving followers to play around common removals and AOE. But the way the game is now, all of the proactive cards have blow up the board for free so there is no longer any decision making.

Loss of class identity

One of SV’s biggest strengths over other card games was in its class identities. All 8 of the Shadowverse classes are very unique and this really plays into the whole class fantasy too. This is reflected both visually and in the game mechanics. For example, Shadowcraft has a lot of skeletons, zombies, and ghosts. It really feels like you are playing a necromancer, with the class mechanics where you sacrifice followers and bring them back from the dead. Rune has a lot of witches and sorcerers, and this is reflected in its class mechanics which includes a lot of spell synergy.

Classes also had well set strengths and weaknesses. Because of its spell synergy nature, Rune had weaker followers but the most efficient card draw. Haven was the cleric class and Blood was for vampires, so efficient healing was reserved for these two. Sword had the best quality followers but weak card draw, Dragon was the late game class so it gets big Stormers, etc…

Thankfully, the solid visual design of the SV class cards has remained untarnished over the years. But mechanically, everything has gone downhill. Classes can do literally everything now. Everyone gets efficient draw, healing, stormers, you name it. It is important for classes to have well defined strengths and weaknesses, and this is no longer the case in modern SV. The class identities have been blurred and there are only strengths, no weaknesses.

Anne & Grea, Royal Duo and their associated token spell. Here’s a fun game, let’s count how many Rune class identity breaks are in this one card!

Quest decks

The term come from Hearthstone, where quests were special spells that were guaranteed to be in your opening hand. The quest would grant some kind of powerful, but conditional reward as it required its player to complete a list of tasks. So decks would be built around these legendary quests. When they were first released in Hearthstone’s Ungoro expansion, I remember them being poorly received due to the lack of counterplay and in how one-dimensional these decks were. Imagine my surprise when Quests were brought back for the Saviors of Uldum expansion. Imagine my surprise yet again when Cygames decided it was a good idea to bring them over to Shadowverse.

To Shadowverse’s credit, quests aren’t an actual mechanic like they are in HS. But in modern SV, the vast majority of competitive decks play identically to quest decks. Every single deck has a list of tasks to complete, and once this is done their win condition becomes online. Last Words Shadow wants to hit 10 Last Words followers destroyed as quickly as possible. Wrath Blood wants to hit itself 7 times. Evolve decks want to hit 5 or 7 evolves as quickly as possible, etc…

Bloodlust Demon and Frenzied Corpsmaster. Showcasing Evolve and Rally, the original quest decks.

Just like HS, there is no real way of stopping or slowing down your opponent’s quest progress. The quest rewards are quite powerful, so gameplay devolves to both players racing to complete their quest first.

E-Sports and casual play

So this part is not related to gameplay at all. Shadowverse originally came out in late 2016, at the peak of popularity for digital card games. Hearthstone was consistently a top 10 viewed category on Twitch and there were tons of new digital CCGs coming out. In the current year 2024 digital card games have declined considerably; they still get played a lot, but the casual viewership doesn’t even come close to how it was 8 years ago.

If you were around back then, you’d know that there were talks of the game possibly becoming as big as Hearthstone. That obviously didn’t happen, and maybe one reason was Cygames fumbling by releasing two bad expansions in a row(Tempest of the Gods and Wonderland Dreams) during the time period when SV had a lot of eyes on it. But I think a bigger reason is in how the game was marketed. In the West, SV is marketed as this serious competitive E-Sports ready card game, and I feel that is a huge misstep on Cygames’ part. Competitive communities need to be grown and not forced, and there needs to be interest in the first place. In Shadowverse(and card games, and likely games in general), the vast majority of people are not interested in playing competitively. Most people play casually and collect cards at their own pace.

There’s a disconnect between how the game is marketed in the West vs how most people play the game, so I do hope that Cygames re-evaluates their strategy here for Worlds Beyond. Over the years Cygames sponsored a lot of content creators to do streams: seeing them just do a 1-off stream and then never play the game again was not a very good look in my opinion. Maybe it would be better to sponsor the people who actually stream SV consistently. In the West I also think it would be better if the game was marketed as a fun and casual card game, and then the competitive community could slowly grow, build interest, and go from there. But then what about game modes for casual players who don’t want to play Constructed? Take Two and Open Six are pretty good, but I feel like there needs to be something else. Some of the most fun I have ever had in card games is on the release day of a new set, where you and your friends crack open packs and build whatever decks you can make from the cards you open. That kitchen table experience just doesn’t happen in SV.

To be fair, what I’m describing isn’t just an SV problem: it’s an issue that all digital card games have, and I feel like none of them have been able to properly address it. I don’t really know what the answer is to this issue, as I can all I can do is identify that there is a problem. Maybe more events and temporary play modes, like Pauper and Artisan from Magic the Gathering Arena. I wanted to point this out because card games are quite niche, and there is another equally niche community I was a part of: fighting games. Recently I have seen that fighting games, spearheaded by Street Fighter VI, were able to make great strides in broadening their appeal to casual and competitive players alike. So I would like to see a similar thing happen to card games, and it would be pretty cool if Shadowverse Worlds Beyond were the one to lead this charge.

Conclusion

So yeah, the biggest issue is the trend Rivayle started of making fully statted followers with premium abilities stapled on to them, particularly removal. This snowballed into a whole slew of issues that have plagued modern SV and brought the game to the state it is in today. If Worlds Beyond can avoid treading this path, then the game should have a bright future.

To end on a positive note, even though card design and balance have been a dumpster fire in modern SV, Cygames has done some amazing work in the other parts of the game. Shadowverse is the digital card game that has the best QoL(quality of life) features, bar none. Replays, a tournament client that can see both player’s hands, the ability to quickly generate a code to copy/paste decklists from the game and the Shadowverse Portal website, being able to play different formats(especially draft) in private matches, the list just goes on. The game and client are also incredibly well optimized. My old 11+ year old laptop running Windows 7 that couldn’t even emulate PSX games at full speed had no issues running SV. Similarly, I had a very old budget LG phone for the longest time that couldn’t even play games like Mahjong Soul… but SV was buttery smooth. Bugs are also identified very quickly and squashed.

One reason SV and Cygames products in general tend to be so well optimized is because they are mobile games first, and the Japanese smartphone industry is fairly behind in comparison to the rest of the world. So they probably spend a lot of time and resources making sure that their games can run on weaker devices. I do hope this philosophy continues in Worlds Beyond so that the game does not require a top-of-the-line device to run properly.

Decks I am playing in WU meta

Nerea, Beast Empress by Tsune-kun

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.

SV decks I am playing in VC meta

Shion by Hisakata Soji

Been a while since I have made one of these posts. I wanted to write about the decks that I am using in the Shadowverse Verdant Conflict meta. The VC meta is quite divisive, as many people hate it due to the faster pace and high amount of noninteractive cards. But honestly, I am a pretty selfish person. No matter how bad a meta is, if I can find at least one deck that I enjoy playing, then I will have fun playing it. This was the case with Wonderland Dreams which is widely considered to be the worst meta in SV history. But I still had a lot of fun playing during WD because it was the first time that Earth Rite Rune was viable, so I just played that deck. Similarly, there are a lot of things about the Verdant Conflict meta that annoy me but I have a few decks that I still enjoy playing so it is no problem.

Natura Midrange Forest
Easily my #1 favorite new deck from this expansion. This deck is amazing and has everything I want from a Midrange deck. Decent card draw, many different lines of play every turn, and opportunities of making some huge power plays. Best of all, it actually feels like a Forest deck which is something that Rotation has been lacking recently. The main class mechanic, playing multiple cards a turn, is how this deck makes those power spike turns in the mid to late game.

This deck went through a lot of changes and iterations since the beginning. One of the biggest challenges was in Airbound Barrage. It might seem weird to not see this card here, because Airbound is probably one of the most broken Forest cards ever printed. And I thought it should be 3x autoinclude in every deck. But between May Eager Elf and Avatar of Fruition, the deck has enough spot removal. There are also not that many great fanfares that are worth reusing in this deck.

Another big change was in May, Eager Elf. She was printed in the last expansion Rebirth of Glory and was widely considered to be a semi meme card. It seemed way too hard to consistently proc her Invocation effect when needed, and the other issue was in playing 4 cards a turn without board locking yourself. Well it turns out that Natura Forest is the perfect deck for her, because Respite and Fertile Aether provide virtual 0 cost cards that can be used to combo without actually taking up board space.

Earth Rite Rune
Rune is the worst class by far in the Rotation meta, and out of all the decks it has Earth Rite is probably the best performing one. Unfortunately I do not enjoy this deck nearly as much as Spellburn(the hybrid Spellboost/Earth Rite) from the last expansion, but I still have to play it since Rune is my main class. The reprint of Silent Laboratory from VC is extremely welcome, but this deck still has consistency issues in the early game. The new card Passionate Potioner is a solid 3 drop that can be used to copy key Earth Sigils, so it is now easier to set up those juicy 4 sigil Magisa plays.

Natura Control Blood
My other favorite new deck from Verdant Conflict, though it is definitely #2 compared to Natura Forest. Popularly called REN Blood by the Japanese community because of their names for the class mechanic(Revenge Evolve Natura), similar to REM Blood(Revenge Evolve Machina) from the previous expansion. Like the name implies, this is a Control deck that mixes cards from three different archetypes: Natura, Evolve, and Vengeance. I would say it is primarily a Vengeance/Evolve deck that adds in Natura cards for draw consistency. Many of the best Vengeance cards naturally have good evolve synergies(Yurius, Destructive Succubus) so it is easy to fit in cards like Zeus and Jafhnar/Hnikar. The Natura side of the deck provides extra draw since the trees are basically Neutral Insights, and Cradle of Dark Divinity provides a free evolve which feeds into the evo synergies of the deck.

The deck is a blast to play because it actually feels like a Blood deck, where you use your life as a resource. That was one of my main complaints about the previous expansion, because Machina Blood did not feel like a Blood deck at all. It actually felt more like a Shadow deck since its main win condition(Mono) and board clear(accel Technolord) scaled based on the number of dead Machina followers. Unfortunately this deck is pretty weak to decks that have a lot of incremental burn, like Earth Rite Rune and Thoth Natura Shadow. In other matchups though, Blood has the best Control tools in the format. The class has the best damage mitigation tool available in Azazel leader effect, and a multitude of healing effects including Cradle of Dark Divinity. While this is a Control deck, the main gameplan of the deck is to just survive and fight the opponent on board using busted Vengeance cards in the mid to late game. At some point, it transitions to a slow burn plan through the Destructive Succubus and the Turn10 effect of Lunatic Aether.

Artifact Portal with Maisha
Artifact Portal is a long time favorite of mine, and the archetype was struggling in the early meta for VC but has seen a resurgence recently with the mini expansion and a buff to a certain legendary. The key reason is Absolute Modesty, which is probably one of the most blatantly pushed cards that Cygames has ever made. The card functions as a 1pp removal when accelerated, which scales based on the number of artifacts in your deck. It gives you a leader effect on evolve which helps clear the board, and deal face damage instead if the enemy board is already clear. And then it even has an enhance effect which gives it free evo and cost reduces all artifacts in hand by 1. Just a card that is good at every stage of the game. The evolve effect of Absolute Modesty encourages the deck to run many different types of Artifacts, but it is hard to say whether it is worth building around that or not. In this variant of the deck, we ignore the evo effect and run a pretty typical Artifact deck with Modesty as an added bonus.

The strength of Artifact Portal is that it is the king of board control, and so the gameplan of this deck is to keep the opponent board clear by creating artifacts, and then giving them Rush with Acceleratium for efficient board plays every turn. The deck then has two main win conditions. One is to save an evolve for Maisha and then use the Purgation Blade on herself, which will deal 20 damage or more as long as you have enough friendly followers destroyed in the game. This normally requires you to wait until Turn 10, but it is possible to get Maisha lethals earlier helped by the pp refund from playing 1pp artifacts(Analyzings and Ancients) with an active Acceleratium and Augmentation Bestowal. The enhance effect of Absolute Modesty also helps with this gameplan, since it cost reduces all artifacts in hand by 1. The other win condition is to create a huge board early with the help of a recently buffed card: Shion, Mercurial Aegis. Her cost was lowered from 9 to 8, and her accelerate was buffed from 5pp to 3pp, so in some matchups Artifact can try to win by creating an unanswerable board. Since Shion now costs 8, she is also not a dead card late in the game as her protection effect is very relevant against many decks in the meta.

Artifact Portal with Ines
A different build of Artifact Portal. Maisha lethal setups do not happen that often anymore in this fast meta, so this build plays more into the Absolute Modesty leader effect. We generate at the very minimum 4 different artifacts between Analyzing, Ancient, Guardform, and Strikeform. We can still try to win by creating unanswerable boards with early Artifacts combined with Shion accelerate. And now instead of Maisha we have Ines, who is hard for many decks to interact with and can run away with the game. Half of the cards in our deck cycle, so toggling Resonance on and off for her AOE burn effect is trivial.

As you can see, I am a huge fan of running the 12 Machina package(Mechagun Wielder, Hoverboard Mercenary, Displacer Bot, Magna Giant). At the very minimum 9 machinas are required, since Displacer Bot is probably the most important card in the entire deck. Hoverboard is not 100% necessary, but I like running her because it increases the chances that a Magna Giant played for full cost later in the game will actually do enough damage clear the board.

Burn Spellboost Runecraft

Tetra, Sapphire Rebel

Rune was in a dire state in the Steel Rebellion Shadowverse meta before its mini expansion. The class was bottom of the barrel in both Rotation and Unlimited formats in playrates and winrates, and often had the lowest global winrate on Shadowlog. It is not like the Steel Rebellion cards were bad; they were just scattered across different archetypes that had little to overlap with each other. The class felt like complete garbage and every archetype seemed incomplete and half baked.

Enter the mini expansion, and the new cards have brought the class out of the dumps. Rune got the most powerful and interesting cards by far in the Steel Rebellion mini expansion, and almost every archetype has seen a resurgence. Solomon and Clarke are both incredible cards and while Solomon is more flashy, I believe Clarke is the more powerful one. The evidence is in what I believe to be the best Rune archetype right now in Rotation: Burn Spellboost, a deck that has Clarke as a core card but often does not run Solomon.

Burn Spellboost is an archetype that has existed since the Altersphere expansion. The deck is probably the closest thing to a true hybrid Spellboost/Earth Rite that the class has ever gotten. The main play pattern of the deck involves controlling the board while slowly burning down the opponent with a combination of Orichalcum Golem + Veridic Rituals + Truth’s Adjudication + Zealot of Truth. The Altersphere version of the deck also had to run Despondent Chimera. The original version of the deck had a number of issues, the first being Despondent Chimera and how it is a a legitimately bad card due to its high variance. The second issue is that Orichalcum Golem was the only card that had a relevant Earth Rite effect, so the deck would suffer in games where the golem was never drawn.

Clarke has solved the issues with the deck. He provides another great Earth Rite effect so that you will not get stuck with a bunch of useless Earth Sigils. Not only that but Clarke draws a card which makes it easier to find your Orichalcums. He has largely made it unnecessary to run Despondent Chimera now, although the card still sees play in some variants of the deck.

Earth Rite Runecraft is my favorite deck in Shadowverse, and I really loved the Mysteria Orichalcum Burn deck from Altersphere. The Steel Rebellion version of Burn Spellboost is very close to that deck, so I have been having a blast playing in this post mini expansion meta. Compared to the more popular Solomon Raio Rune deck that people are playing right now, this deck lacks its late game inevitability. But the tradeoffs are that it does not brick as often due to running a lower curve and having way more early game interaction cards. The deck is also capable of winning games much faster, since the win condition is burn based. Pretty happy to see that a true hybrid Spellboost/Earth Rite deck is finally viable.

Core cards

Burn Spellboost core cards

3 Insight
3 Magic Missile
3 Witch Snap
3 Vesper, Witchhunter
3 Tetra, Sapphire Rebel
3 Orichalcum Golem
3 Fate’s Hand
3 Truth’s Adjudication
3 Fiery Embrace
3 Zealot of Truth
3 Clarke, Knowledge Seeker

Insight – Does this need explanation? 1 mana draw a card as a Basic means it is a core 3x in every Spellboost deck forever in both Constructed formats.

Magic Missile – Same as above.

Witch Snap – 2pp deal 3 damage is premium removal and it even gives us an Earth Sigil we can use later. One of the best cards from Altersphere

Vesper, Witchhunter – A very flexible card who can act as a pseudo Halo Golem in its 4pp mode with Earth Rite, or can be accelerated to be a 2pp deal 1 damage summon a Witch’s Cauldron. Since this is a Spellboost deck, she should be played in her Accelerate mode the vast majority of the time. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have played Vesper in her full cost follower mode.

Tetra, Sapphire Rebel – A new card from Steel Rebellion, Tetra is a 4pp 3/4 who gives you a 1pp Repair Mode spell, and then on evolve gets full evo stats and gives you a 1pp Delta Cannon spell. If she attacks she restores a playpoint, so during the evo turns she is essentially a 3pp 3/4. Since this is not a full blown Machina deck, it is very rare that we will be able to hit the 4 Machina cards in a turn requirement to recycle Delta Cannon. But even without that, Tetra is great in Spellboost because she is a fully statted 4 drop who generates two 1 cost spells. You can almost think of her as a fair version of Magic Owl. The vast majority of the time, the Repair Mode should be used on Tetra herself. If she survives an evo trade and heals to 6 health, a lot of decks have an awkward time dealing with her.

Orichalcum Golem – One of the main sources of burn in this deck. There is a key difference in how to use this card in this deck vs how to use it in previous versions of Dirt Burn. Because this deck has a very low number of followers, it will often be behind on board during the evolution turns. If it is turn 5 and you have the choice of playing Orichalcum or something that can get a 2-for-1 trade(like Eleanor or Tetra), then it is almost always correct to not play Orichalcum. Especially if you are behind. Because of this, Orichalcum will actually not be played in its full cost follower mode the majority of the time in this deck. You can only really afford to play it for 5 if you are ahead or the board is at parity. This is especially important against Sword, Haven, and Portal because these classes often pack cards that can deny the Last Words effect of the golem. The accelerate mode on Orichalcum is amazing because it counts as a 1 cost spell that can potentially generate more spells, the Veridic Rituals. Unfortunately there is some RNG associated with Orichalcum accelerate, but all of the outcomes are positive. But since we are a burn deck, the face damage and Veridic Ritual effects tend to be the most desirable.

Fate’s Hand – One of the most broken Rune cards ever, pretty much a 3x core in every Spellboost deck.

Truth’s Adjudication – Another important source of burn in this deck. I honestly hate the design of this card. Obviously the inherent RNG of the card is disgusting and can lead to very frustrating games for both the Rune player and the opponent. But Rune as a class traditionally had an intended weakness of having bad defensive options, with very few quality wards and sources of healing. Adjudication gives the class both of these things so it feels very off. But it is impossible to deny how strong this card is so we have to run it.

Fiery Embrace – One of the best removal spells in the game and an auto-include in any slow Spellboost deck. Burn Spellboost plays a lot of low cost spells so it can Spellboost its hand at a breakneck speed, making Embrace amazing.

Zealot of Truth – A 9 cost 3/5 Storm who gets cost reduction as its Spellboost effect. Essentially the Rune version of Albert. Ideally these should be sent face, but do not be afraid of using them for board control if you are behind.

Clarke, Knowledge Seeker – The new card from Steel Rebellion mini expansion, Clarke is the actual god. He is not fancy, but a Demonic Strike that spellboosts your hand twice while drawing a card is borderline broken in this type of deck. Historically, cheap spells that generate another cheap spell are amazing in Spellboost decks and Clarke is no exception. He pretty much does everything we want in this deck: generates sigils for more Orichalcum fuel, generates burn, draws us cards, and spellboosts our hand. Clarke also has a 10pp follower mode, but we will almost never be using it in this deck. Most of the time we operate with a nearly full hand anyways.

That is a total of 33 cards that are core to this particular version of Burn Spellboost, so it does not leave us much room for flex slots.

Supplemental cards

Solomon, Lord of Magic – The other new card from the Steel Rebellion mini expansion, Solomon has sparked a renaissance in Spellboost Runecraft deck building. He is a 2pp 2/2 who generates a Seal of Solomon, a 7pp spell. Solomon himself has a Spellboost effect of reducing the cost of his Seal. The seal itself initially draws a 0 cost follower, and then draws higher cost followers the more it is spellboosted. After drawing the follower, the seal also sets the cost of said follower to 0. Essentially Solomon allows you to tutor any follower you want, which has given life to so many cards that were once considered to be unplayable for Runecraft. While Solomon is amazing, he is actually unnecessary in this deck. Orichalcum Golem is probably the key follower that you want to pull with the Seal, but we are mainly interested in accelerating the golem not playing it as a follower. If you decide to run Solomon, you most likely want to run Raio as well due to the insane synergy they have together.

Conjure Golem – A solid 2 drop that spellboosts your hand, you can never go wrong with this guy.

Wind Blast – An incredible basic removal spell for Spellboost decks, it might be surprising to see such an iconic card not be in the Core section. But we already have Fiery Embrace and Witch Snap, so in a lot of matchups having extra removal is excessive. Still worth running depending on the meta though.

Robogoblin – A neutral 2pp 2/2 who generates a 1pp Repair Mode spell upon death. 1 cost spells are amazing in Spellboost, and the Repair Mode has extra synergy with Tetra.

Seraphic Blade – You can never go wrong with 2pp removal. This card is good if the meta is dominated by certain 2pp cards that are hard to interact with, such as Vira or Temple of the Holy Lion.

Eleanor, Cosmic Flower – A 3pp 3/3(overstatted!) follower who can spellboost any card in your hand up to 3 times, and then has an evolve effect of generating a Splendid Conjury, a 1pp spell that deals 3 damage to an enemy follower. The spell also deals additional damage as a Spellboost effect. It pains me to place Eleanor as a supplemental card because I love everything about her. I love her character design, card design, English and Japanese voice, and she is by far my most favorite character from the Guild Wars Isunia story arc. But no matter how strong she is, her usefulness drops off drastically once you run out of evos. A 3pp 3/3 who can potentially spellboost a card 3 times is amazing, but there are often better things you can be doing in the late game.

Magisa, Ruinfist Witch – A 3pp 3/2 with a bunch of different Earth Rite effects depending on how many sigils you have. While Burn Spellboost is much more consistent than before, it still suffers in games where Orichalcum Golem is not drawn. Especially if you draw a bunch of sigils with no way of using them. So Magisa can be worth running as an extra Earth Sigil activator.

Sagacious Core – A cycle of cards in the Steel Rebellion expansion, this is a 3pp amulet that upon evolve, restores 2pp and puts two Insights into your hand. You can think of it as a slower version of Concentration, as the payoff is better(double spellboost) but delayed since you have to evolve to activate the effect. Since this deck already has plenty of early game interaction, Core is quite a slow card. But you can never go wrong with more card draw. It also has great synergy with Tetra.

Craving’s Splendor – A Neutral 3pp spell that initially increases any follower’s attack by 4, and then deals 4 damage to it. The main use of this is to combine it with Zealot of Truth to deal 7 damage, but it is also flexible to be used as a removal spell for followers that have 4 or less health.

Cagliostro, Adorable Genius – She has been a staple of Burn Earth Rite decks ever since her original printing in Brigade of the Sky, but is actually not core here since this is a Spellboost deck at heart. You can never go wrong with Cag though, since she provides another way of getting a 2-for-1 exchange during evolution turns.

Despondent Chimera – I mentioned earlier that Despondent sucked because of its high variance. While that has not changed, the card is a lot more consistent now with Solomon in the cardpool. If you do decide to run Despondent, you have to include it with Solomon and Raio and change the configuration of the deck a little bit. More information on that in the next section.

Raio, Omen of Truth – A 7pp 7/7 who spellboosts every card in your deck 9 times. Make no mistake, Raio is a bad card but can be worth playing now because of his ridiculous synergy with Solomon. Spellboost decks typically cannot afford to play a 7pp 7/7 with no immediate effect, but with Solomon you can potentially play him for less than 7. Solomon also gets stronger after you have played Raio as well. Zealots in the deck count as 0 cost followers, so playing Solomon and then immediately using the Seal will give you a 0 cost Zealot of Truth.

Edict of Truth – A 7pp spell that draws cards until your hand is full, and has a Spellboost threshold effect: if it is Spellboosted 9 times or more, than you will recover 7pp after casting it. In the past this card was considered to be extremely high rolly and only usable if combined with Raio. However this deck can spellboost its hand at an insane speed so reaching the 9 threshold is actually quite trivial. Edict is pretty amazing for late game fuel. If you do decide to run it, 1-2 copies is the right amount.

Magiblade Witch – An 8pp 4/4 follower who deals 3 damage to 2 random enemy followers. She also has an accelerate(1) effect of summoning an Earth Sigil. Her 8pp follower mode is completely useless so she will always be accelerated, making her a fancier version of Commence Experiment. This deck actually has hand size issues so Magiblade Witch is useful as a way to get cards out of your hand before drawing.

Mechawing Angel – One of the most widely played Neutral cards from Steel Rebellion. It is a 8pp 6/6 Ward who summons two 1/1 Assembly Droids. But it also has an accelerate effect for 2 of simply summoning two Assembly Droids, making it a Neutral version of Oathless Knight. This card is solid and does not seem fancy, but it is quite amazing in this deck. The 1/1 tokens backed up by Witch Snap and a virtual 6 copies of Magic Missile mean that this deck should have no problems surviving in the early game. Since this is a Spellboost deck, Mechawing is going to be played in its Accelerate mode the vast majority of the time. But it can still be useful as an emergency late game Ward in some matchups.

Decklists and variants

The most popular decklist would probably be Goemon’s after he reported getting a 28 winstreak on ladder using a modified version of a list Matom0 made. After that it would likely be Agni’s, who was able to get the #1 spot on ladder with a mindblowing 150k points during the May season playing several decks including this one.

This is the decklist that I use. It went through several iterations and had Eleanor in it for the longest time. Wind Blast is a card that goes in and out depending on meta, and there are times I wish it was Magiblade Witch. If Sword becomes the main deck to beat in the meta again, then Eleanor will probably return.

Everything I have written about so far is about the main version of Burn Spellboost. There is another variant that some people play that involves Despondent Chimera, which ends up being a very different deck. Here is a decklist that yttmn used to great success early in the mini expansion release, and here is my own list.

A key problem with Despondent Chimera before was that it was only useful if you were able to hit its extremely steep 12 Spellboost threshold to gain Storm. This meant that you wanted to draw into D Chimera early, as topdecking it late game was disastrous. This lead to another problem where getting it in hand early meant that you had a dead card for most of the game, increasing the chance of you getting bricked draws.

This problem has mostly been fixed now that we have Solomon. The main play pattern with this deck is to forget about Despondent Chimera and hope you never draw it, and instead aim on finding Solomon. The main purpose of Solomon is to help you find your Raio. It is a bit unlucky if you naturally draw the only Raio in deck, but if this happens then you have to find a turn where you can safely play him.

One of the most interesting things about playing this deck is knowing the right time to play Solomon. In general, it is very difficult to ever have an opportunity to play a full 7 cost Raio, so it is best to try to get the Seal of Solomon reduced a little bit before trying to get its Spellboost count to 7. Because of this, it is often correct to not play Solomon on 2 even if you have it in hand. I would only play it on 2 if there is literally nothing else you can do that turn. It is generally best to get the Seal to cost 5 or less, so I find that Solomon often gets played during the evolution turns.

After you have Raio active, your entire deck is spellboosted by 9, so any Despondent Chimeras you draw just need a trivial 3 extra spellboosts to unlock the Storm threshold. While Solomon’s main purpose in this deck is to find Raio, he has a bunch of cool combos with other cards. I mentioned earlier that post Raio, playing a Seal of Solomon that has no spellboosts on it will immediately draw a 0 cost Zealot from your deck. Getting the Seal to 6 allows you to tutor out Despondent Chimeras, and getting the Seal to 10 or higher allows you to draw a 0 cost Clarke. 0 cost Despondents are crazy because if you get them to 12 Spellboosts, they are a free 6/6 Storm that deals 3 damage to an enemy follower.. that also restore 3pp. 0 cost Clarkes are even more crazy as he essentially allows you to double the amount of play points you have in a turn. You can spend all of your pp, play the 0 cost Clarke, and then you recover all of your playpoints and can play even more cards. It is almost like a fair version of Dimension Shift in Rotation.

You might notice that this deck is missing Mechawing Angel, a card that shows up in a lot of Spellboost decks. While you can never go wrong with that card, it gets cut from this deck because of how important it is to get Raio active. With the angel cut, it means getting the Seal of Solomon to either 7 or 8 spellboosts will still have it draw Raio, so it gives you more leeway in finding him.

So the ideal gameplan is then to get Raio active first, either by drawing him naturally or tutoring him out with Solomon and potentially playing him for cheaper than 7pp. Once Raio is active, then either draw into Despondent Chimeras naturally or find them using Solomon. Then win the game using the D Chimeras, Zealots, and the other burn left in the deck. Overall I think this variant of the deck is not as strong or consistent as regular Burn Spellboost, since there are a lot more moving parts hinging on Raio. But it is a lot of fun primarily because of all the different Solomon combos that are possible.

Omen of the Ten was a mistake

Galmieux, Omen of Disdain by 77gl

I was inspired to write this post after seeing a lot of people talk about how bad and/or unfun the Altersphere meta was. Looking back over the cards from that expansion, it had a very reasonable power level and many cards had very interesting designs. So what happened? What should have been a great meta was ruined by the fact that Altersphere released right after Omen of the Ten, which in contrast was anything but a reasonable expansion. It has become increasingly clear to me recently that many of the problems from the Altersphere meta and even our current Steel Rebellion meta are caused by cards from Omen.

It kind of pains me to write this because Omen of the Ten is one of the best expansions ever from a flavor perspective. It was really awesome how it was built around the theme of the ten commandments, and how the male omens obey the commandments while the female omens disobey them. Or how the commandments translate to card effects and in-game mechanics. To my knowledge, it is also the first time that original characters were created for new cards, as the vast majority of cards before contained characters borrowed from Rage of Bahamut and other Cygames IPs. But even though the flavor was so amazing, Omen has overall steered the game in a negative direction. There are a number of issues with this expansion.

Powercreep

Let’s get the most obvious issue out of the way first. The power level of this expansion is ridiculous. In my opinion it is on the same level as the old powercreep trio of RoB/TotG/WD from 2017. Keep in mind the expansion that preceded Omen was Brigade of the Sky, and that was already considered a powercreep one. But Omen just turned it up to eleven. Many of the English language streamers noticed the unusually high power level of Omen during spoiler season, and attributed it to the fact that the 2018 World Grand Prix would be played in that expansion’s meta. I guess the logic was the power level was intentionally set high so that the WGP would be flashy and mostly feature the new cards.

While the power level of this expansion was ridiculous, not every class benefited equally. In particular, Dragoncraft was one class that was pushed extremely hard in Omen. Which brings me to the next point.

The Dragon problem

I have noticed that in card games that have a Legacy and Standard Rotation format, there is one thing that mostly happens when a new set comes out. There is almost always a huge power level difference between Rotation and Legacy, so the vast majority of new cards only end up seeing play in the Rotation format because they are not strong enough to compete with the power level of Legacy. And then occasionally you will see cards that see no play in Rotation, but end up becoming staples in the Legacy format due to the proper support from the larger cardpool. The Fairy Wisp generators like Aria and Flower of Fairies are the best examples of this: never taking off in Rotation, but being a perfect fit for Unlimited Roach Forest.

Very rarely do new cards become staples in both formats. When this happens, it is generally a sign that the new cards are broken since they can compete with the other broken cards from the past. This is pretty much what happened with the entire Disdain package from Dragon. Cerberus, Hound of Hades for Shadow is also guilty of this.

The Disdain package single handedly negated all of ramp’s inherent weaknesses and made Dragon(the most degenerate class in the game) Tier 1 in both Constructed formats for a very long time. Ramp is a very dangerous mechanic, and in other card games it comes with an opportunity cost: you are losing cards in hand and giving up early game tempo for a mana advantage later in the game. The Disdain package allows Dragon to ramp while drawing extra cards and maintaining board control.

Even without ramp, this expansion also made Dragon have the premiere aggro deck in Unlimited. Because for whatever reason, the slow ramp class gets to have broken early and mid game cards too. I have lost count of the amount of games where I am playing a slow Control or Combo deck against Aggro Dragon, and I notice that somehow the face deck has managed to draw more cards than me, while simultaneously taking the board, pressuring my life total, and removing my followers for less pp than I am spending to remove his. We know that the majority of the SV developers are Magic the Gathering players, and I would not be surprised at this point if they mostly main green. It feels like they just decided to remove all of green’s weaknesses and make it capable of doing everything. Does anyone else think it is crazy how even after one nerf, Galmieux is still an auto include in every Dragon deck in both formats?

Anyway out of all the classes, it is glaringly obvious that Dragon was pushed the hardest in this expansion. It obviously worked, since literally every single player in the Top 16 of 2018 World Grand Prix brought Dragon in their lineup. Dragon completely dominated the Omen and Altersphere Rotation metas, and is surprisingly not Tier 1 anymore in Steel Rebellion. But I think the class is mainly being held down by Blood, and if that class gets nerfed then we will just get a repeat of what happened in the last two metas.

Invocation

This was a new mechanic introduced from this expansion, and in my opinion it is inherently degenerate. Getting a tempo advantage from playing cost reduced(or free) followers from hand is one of the most frequently complained about things in this game. But there is something even more broken than that: playing cards for free out of your deck. This is pretty much what Invocation is. Anyone who has played Hearthstone during the time when Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was in Standard knows how broken Patches the Pirate is. In SV it requires a bit more work than just playing one pirate, but the general idea of pulling cards for free out of your deck without spending any resources is completely broken.

The effect that this mechanic had on Blood was particularly warping: in the entirety of Omen and Altersphere every single Blood deck in both formats was a Flauros deck. Simply put if the deck did not have Flauros it was not competitive. I suppose that it is kind of a miracle that Steel Rebellion managed to change that as we finally have competitive Blood decks that do not use Flauros(Machina Blood in Rotation and the return of Aggro Bats in Unlimited).

I think the only acceptable Invocation card is Prophetess of Creation, and that is primarily because 1)the Invocation requirements are so steep and take the entire game to hit and 2)she MUST be summoned through Invocation, and cannot be played normally from hand. But I would honestly not be surprised if Prophetess were to become oppressive in the future: all it would really take is for Rune to get a cost reduction 6pp card and something less awkward than Raio/Edict to use for the 7pp requirement.

Mjerrabaine

A very unique card kickstarting the Highlander archetype in SV. Unfortunately because of how powerful and swingy his leader effect is, the experience of playing as and against Mjerrabaine decks is awful. It feels like none of the decisions from either play matter, and the only thing that matters is whether or not Mjerrabaine is drawn on curve. When you fight against Highlander decks you also cannot play around anything since everything is a 1 of. Sometimes the Mjerrabaine player happens to play common constructed cards on curve and you don’t even realize that it’s a Mjerrabaine deck until it is too late. I would have actually preferred if his Fanfare effect was just Reno Jackson’s from Hearthstone, since healing is at such a premium in Shadowverse.

Forestcraft

Some people try to push the narrative that Forest is a long term underpowered class and hated by the developers. I am here to tell you that this is nonsense. In fact if you look back through Shadowverse’s history and see which class most frequently showed up in Tier 1, it would be Forest.

With that said.. this expansion would be the beginning of the end for Forest in Rotation. Forest was consistently Tier 1 in every Rotation meta since the format was introduced, and Omen of the Ten was the class’s downfall. A big reason is that Forest got one of the worst Omen themes next to Shadow. Izudia is a slow 10pp follower in a class that has a lot of trouble playing the long game, and his effect has absolutely no relation to the effects that his followers have. True to its name, Unkilling does not actually help you win the game: it either annoys the opponent or helps you not lose. The best Forest card in this expansion is Liza, who is a generic valuebomb creating a 10,500 vial barrier for playing the class since she is auto-include in both formats. The other best Forest card from Omen is Luxglaive Bayle. Does anyone actually like this card? Bayle is obviously strong, but cost reduction followers are one of the most hated types of cards in this game and I don’t think anyone was asking for more of them.

Forest would later become quite strong for a brief period of time in the last half of Altersphere, but it was only because of a buff to Greenglen Axeman and a key card(Lina and Lena) being withheld in the mini expansion. Thankfully Steel Rebellion has made Izudia Forest somewhat competitive(word being used very loosely), but it doesn’t change how disconnected the effect of the Omen is from his other Unkilling followers. You compare the theme of Unkilling to the theme of Disdain and it is crystal clear which class was pushed more.

Puppet Portal and Lishenna

Lishenna, Omen of Destruction was printed in this expansion, encouraging a slow control style of playing Puppets. While I am not a fan of Lishenna’s design due to her deck having very little in the way of board interaction, the real issue is that she was pushed at the expense of an old archetype. The release of Omen coincided with a double nerf on Nicholas, Stalwart Inventor and Vengeful Puppeteer Noah, which pretty much destroyed the aggressive version of Puppet Portal forever. It is true that Puppets was too good during the Brigade of the Sky meta, but Nicholas was really the only card that needed to get changed. The old deck’s playstyle was also a lot more interactive than Lishenna’s.

The conspiracy theorist in me believes that old Puppet Portal was nerfed so harshly because Cygames wanted players to use the new Omen cards. I am glad they created a new archetype in this expansion for Portal but it did not have to devour an old one in the process.

Odds and ends

I know that Rune is a complete joke in both Constructed formats right now, but this is also the expansion that gave us Truth’s Adjudication and Anne, Mysterian Prodigy.

I like the Usurpation theme a lot, but it does bother me that Octrice is a Last Wards hate card… who also happens to do a ton of things at once. Even if her fanfare whiffs, she has full stats, an evolution effect that generates more cards, and good late game scaling due to her Enhance effect.

Not everything that came out of Omen was a mistake. Orichalcum Earth Rune with Founder from the Altersphere meta is one of my all time favoite decks, and it would not exist without Owen and Orichalcum Golem, two cards that came from this expansion. But overall I feel that OotT has worsened the game.