All-Star Cast: A lot of the well-known Japanese voice actors participate in voicing the game's characters and cards.
Author's Saving Throw: The developers keep an eye on player feedback to improve the game.
After being reluctant to nerf legendaries for about a year since the beta release, Cygames made an announcement mid-July 2017 that they will consider looking into nerfing legendary cards in the balance patch at the end of the month. Given that the meta at the time was dominated by decks driven entirely by a few legendaries, this announcement was met with sighs of relief.
After the super powerful cards of Tempest and Wonderland caused Power Creep and created incredibly strong decks that were difficult to compete with, Cygames noticed the amount of nerfs they needed to check the reigning decks each time and decided, in their patch announcement at the end of August 2017, that they will be reconsidering said design philosophy, dialing back on the power creep, and work towards encouraging a greater variety of deck types.
A week into the 12 million download promotional events, players were not too happy about the tedium in getting bonus chests from matches. Cygames caught on and ironed out this flaw in a patch note, allowing players who lost their previous chest round to have another guaranteed opportunity on the next match, as opposed to needing to go on another win streak to see the next chest. These changes would persist into future Bonus Chest events.
Based on player feedback, the Grand Prix mode has been tweaked over time:
During the first Rotation Grand Prix, those who qualified for Group A Finals would get the unique emblem and card sleeve... if they had at least 1 win in the finals. There was a lot of frustrated finalists who lost their very first match due to unlucky draws or matchupsnote To rub it in, Grand Prix finals were single-elimination and only got the emblem. The next Rotation Grand Prix quelled this frustration by ensuring that Group A finalists would get both the emblem and sleeve even if they lost their first match.
After the 20 August 2018 patch, all subsequent Grand Prix finals are double-elimination, so that a poor first match will not deny you the chance to strive for greater rewards.
The first Rotation Grand Prix in 2019 also changed a rule for qualifying for finals, allowing a player in Group A Round 2 who's gotten at least 3 wins (but not the 4 needed for Group A Finals) to at least proceed to Group B Finals, letting them still have a chance at gaining some of the limited-time prizes instead of being completely screwed out for not qualifying.
Many players were frustrated that the first Granblue Fantasy tie-in event only gave out sleeves and emblems when the Street Fighter collab event had actual leaders for sale. Years later, not only would there be an entire expansion released dedicated to Granblue Fantasy, but leader skins of popular Granblue characters were also released. Also, the emblems and sleeves from the first event return (with new Orchis sleeves and emblems for Portalcraft), and anyone who already got them the first time instead gets a hefty 50 rupies for each quest (which totals up to a potential 9 packs for those who got all the rewards the first time).
The Chinese version of Shadowverse under Netease received two exclusive leaders upon release. Some months later, they were imported to the global version.
Some of the technical complaints about the game is that it takes so much storage space. From mid-2018 onwards, Cygames has been slowly implementing updates that would optimize the game's disk capacity as well as conserving download bandwidth. In-game updates now show the download size before proceeding, and recorded voice lines for story cutscenes are optional, yet still downloadable on a per-chapter basis.
With the launch of Verdant Conflict comes the Card Pack Point system, which slowly accumulates for each pack the player purchases. After opening a total of 400 packs from a single set, the player can redeem the Pack Points for a legendary of their choice from that set, including the coveted and incredibly rare leader skins, ensuring that all that investment will not be for nought.
Normally, future leader skins would be decided by character popularity poll, and only the winner for each craft would then get a leader skin in the upcoming sets. As time went on and the game's own story mode cast began growing in number, the fanbase became increasingly split on poll winners, especially those who realized that story mode characters tended to get oveshadowed by other legendary cards. Following the introduction of the Battle Pass, it was made known that story mode characters who didn't win the popularity poll still had a chance of becoming a leader skin as a Battle Pass exclusive or in a later pack.
For most of the game's lifespan, the daily missions frequently involve winning games, be it in Unranked, Ranked, or Arena. This however has led to players prioritizing decks that win over experimenting with builds, even in unranked where losing has no penalty. Solo Missions were implemented so that players with a lacking collection could still get a currency income without getting curb-stomped by opponents with refined decks, and by the sixth anniversary the game finally rolled out a whole series of new missions that don't favour winning so much.
Colbert Bump: Shadowverse has sponsored collaborations with several popular internet personalities, such as ProZD and Kizuna AI making videos or comedic skits about playing the game. As an effect, many fans admitted trying out this game because they saw their favorite YouTuber advertising Shadowverse.
Creator-Driven Successor: To fellow Cygames IP, Rage of Bahamut. In fact, before the English version of Rage of Bahamut had even shut down, the developers had already announced Shadowverse, and nearly every card in this game uses card art from Rage of Bahamut (not to mention the huge failure of Rage of Bahamut in the west due to Screwed by the Network). The second expansion is even called "Rise of Bahamut".
Defictionalization: It's possible to obtain printed versions of in-game cards from some real-world events, such as conventions and tournaments. For example, a demo event at Anime Expo 2017 gave away single-card booster packs for cards based on the then-latest virtual set, "Wonderland Dreams".
Meme Acknowledgement: The Smiling Rowen meme, which originated from the English fandom, was once re-posted by the officialEnglish Shadowverse Twitter page and had Rowen's edited face as its logo for a short while.
For every 1 million downloads, Cygames gives away X free packs of the latest expansion equivalent to the X million times the game has been downloaded. As the playerbase grew over time, the milestone celebrations instead turn into Chest events and fixed amounts of free packs as additional login bonuses.
There are also Anniversary events commemorating years of the game, which give free packs from all expansions to the players, as well as the Polls which allow the player to vote which among the characters should be featured as the next leaders.
Even though most of the cards have English voice lines, there are a few cards that retain their Japanese voices even in the English versions of the game. In particular, the tie-in cards and leaders for Princess Connect! Re:Dive in the Ultimate Colosseum expansion retain their Japanese voices, mainly because Princess Connect hasn't been released outside of Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan prior to 2021. In addition, all of the cards in the Fortune's Hand expansion had their Japanese voices intact even in the English versions because the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 would delay the English dub for these cards.
The Shadowverse anime was not dubbed. However, the game based on the anime, Champion's Battle, not only reuses the English dubbed cards for Shadowverse, but also gives the anime cast English voices.
Only Six Faces: Although Shadowverse's card art draws from the talents of many different artists, it's very easy to determine which artist drew what by the facial features. For instance, compare Arisa with Olivia, Aurelia, and Cassiopeia.
Max Mittelman generally voices young, heroic teenagers. In Shadowverse, he voices Albert, who spots a baritone Large Ham voice instead.
Similarly, Sean Chiplock, most well known for characters such as Subaru and Mishima, voices the much older, deeper, hammier and eviler villain Belphomet.
Poe's Law: Jolly Rogers is a pirate who gains a random ability which can make or break his usefulness in different situations. Is it a veiled Take That! to Hearthstone's Pirate meta and random effects? Best not read too hard into it.
Recursive Adaptation: Champion's Battle is a video game adaptation of an anime adaptation of a mobile game. Things come full circle when the Dawn of Calamity expansion ports exclusive cards from Champion's Battle into the original game.
Role Reprise: Those who have originally dubbed the English voices for the characters in the Granblue Fantasy anime returned to voice their respective Granblue characters in the "Brigade of the Sky" Crossover expansion in this game. The same goes with the English voice actors for the One-Punch Man collaboration leaders.
The Other Darrin: The English dub for chapters 9-11 in the Story Mode drastically changed the voice actress for Arisa. In the Tempest of the Gods expansion, many cards ended up having new voice actors.
Troubled Production: The English dub was temporarily halted after the Fortune's Hand expansion due to the coronavirus pandemic. Until further notice, all cards from that point on will have Japanese voice lines regardless of client language.
Trivia tropes for Shadowverse: Champion's Battle
Feelies: To coincide with the Japanese release of the game, a limited-time campaign where you could buy physical Shadowverse card packs with real cards inside was held in Japan; you got 3 random cards in a pack. Some of the cards were designated "Premium Rare Cards" with a colored icon at the bottom and equipped with NFC chips in a similar fashion to amiibo cards, and can be scanned into Champion's Battle to obtain special card packs. The Premium Rare Cards function is still available in the English version of the game despite no English versions of the cards being released.
, that they will be reconsidering said design philosophy, dialing back on the power creep, and work towards encouraging a greater variety of deck types.