Shadowverse (ie: Anime Hearthstone)

Well, I made it to AA 0 where it seems like people are relatively laid back and willing to try out dumb decks. Presumably because they can't rank down. I'm actually really liking my Nepthys deck, and will be sad once I reach max level with Shadowcraft (it feels bad to not earn experience, so I usually switch decks at that point).

Congratulations! I usually keep going until at least I get 200 wins in a craft for the booster pack reward. Technically you still gain progress in a craft until 500 wins for the flair you unlock.

New expansion announced! Tempest of the Gods. In addition to the cards on the website, there are magazine scans announcing 8 new cards. Here are some translations (borrowed from someone else):

So Haven's getting a super-Mordecai? Yay for powercreep!

edited 1st Mar '17 3:13:59 AM by Clarste

I somehow feel that Seraph is still a better wincon than an invincible follower that requires you to do nothing else at turn 9. Morde is spawnable via Nep, but Heavenly Aegis isn't coming out until T9. I guess Haven players can keep one around in case their primary wincon gets wrecked (by Bahamut if Elena or by Odin if Seraph).

Forest getting a control ward is nice though. Poor Mahees never got his chance to shine. At first glance Erin seemed a lot more consistent than Fairy Beast and the enhance effect helps when you're in lategame topdeck mode. Scorched Rat is... amusing. If you play Lightning on a full board it's still 10 damage to your face next turn, unless the opponent has <6 HP which means gg. Goblin Zombie's statline must be a typo since otherwise he's getting +2/3 on evo. Baphomet means 1pp Soul Dealer, which has strong combo potential with Mary for up to 10 face damage on turn six.

Goblin Princess is pretty good to instantly develop a board, although I'm hoping we can get the Goblin Emperor/Queen (the art for them exists already). In a way it's a neutral Hell's Unleasher.

Also, the website has been updated with three new cards. Zeus is very underwhelming for its cost. 10pp Neutrals should severely turn the tide and Zeus is nowhere close to that. It's immediately obvious that he exists solely to be Sahaquiel's combo card. Wrath Drake is Foul Tempest in a dragon-shaped package. Spiderweb Imp is really good; unless some new crazy removal comes out it's sure to survive turn 2 and that's the line between losing and winning against aggro.

Overall a pretty strong set of first reveals. Hopefully the other cards can refresh the meta even harder.

EDIT: I just noticed that this time we're getting two legendaries per class instead of one. Decks are going to get a teeny bit more expensive, it seems.

edited 1st Mar '17 7:23:43 AM by FlowingCotton

A bunch of other cards have been announced including legendaries. Most recently Gawain for Swordcraft who looks almost just like Albert, and blood legendary Belphegor and Neutral Israfil. Horray for more Saha engine! So now the only crafts we've yet to see any legendaries from are Forest and Dragon, but more info should come shortly!

Also poor Jeanne D'arc, she's getting a new Haven legendary as Dark Jeanne, but it's difficult to use. She's similar to the regular Jeanne D'arc but only 6 cost, but her version of her effects deals 2 damage to everyone, and then buffs the attack of all survivors.

Also regarding the current metagame, it's (D) shifted a lot. Roach OTK is mostly gone as expected, but Daria's also gone into a massive decline. The play rate's been cut by more than half and now D Shift is the most popular Runecraft deck once again. Excuse the crappy pun.

edited 8th Mar '17 11:04:54 AM by Moekou

We're getting 8 free packs over 5 days to celebrate 8 million downloads, I guess we can thank the exploding Korean playerbase for this (it also came out when dissatisfaction with Hearthstone was at its peak which helped). I wonder how fast we're going to hit 9 and 10 million when the Chinese version comes out; hopefully they can be on the same server as the rest of the world.

My thoughts on the new cards: Gawain is nice; I think he's there to re-enable the old legendaries and golds (one turn earlier Otohime or Leonidas), it nicely doesn't support Albert because of his static enhance cost of 9. On the new legendaries, Belphegor is a very nice alternative to Soul Dealer since she's over the statline for her cost and doesn't punish you for playing her at vengeance. She's definitely not an option against aggro because willingly reducing yourself to 10 at turn 4 is just all kinds of bad. Soul Dealer found a new niche with Belphegor capable of reducing his cost to 1. Dark Jeanne is a bit situational given how she hits and buffs everything, but still more viable than her non-dark counterpart. I can actually see her replacing Themis as a means of board clear, but it really depends on how the meta will develop.

The second Shadow legendary, Minthe, is going to have Bloody Mary-tier survivability, which means she's a kill on sight lest you want Tyrant all over your face the next turn. The Japanese are already calling her a legendary Goliath (the basic 3/4 bronze no-effect follower) because of this. Luckily the Shadow golds (2pp necromancy kill an evolved follower, 7pp summon wights and a king wight) are all pretty good.

Blood gets a slightly more expensive Imp Lancer (4/6 Storm gain +1/0 for every follower destroyed) and little other of note.

I really really hope Forest and Dragon gets a good legendary. Frankly I want Control Forest to be a real thing, since currently it's just tempo with a silver bolt and a white wolf slapped on. Aerin is pretty good, the new silver ward is also a very good support.

On the current meta, it's really stable right now, people have moved on to whine about Albert but I'm finding a whole range of decks playing when I'm playing ranked.

edited 8th Mar '17 11:39:50 PM by FlowingCotton

I don't think it even really matters that Minthe will die; she's simply not a very good card. Unlike Bloody Mary where self-damaging cards are the norm in Blood decks, Minthe requires good Necromancy cards to be useful, and there simply aren't that many of those, and especially not ones that cost enough shadows for anyone to care about her effect. Her combo isn't good enough to create a deck full of bad cards, so there's basically no reason to run her.

edited 9th Mar '17 3:08:11 AM by Clarste

What decks are you guys playing with most right now? I finally built a Ramp Dragon deck so I'm having a lot of fun with it, and it makes Israfel my most looked-forward to card at the moment. Though mostly because I like how she looks. Funny how it essentially becomes an angel deck.

Looks like despite the expansion name, we're not really getting many other gods besides Zeus?

I'm enjoying control sword for ladder; with the occasional tweaked tempo elf.

We have some new reveals (from IGN for some reason). The Serpent is a strong play if you fish for him with Baphomet, since Turn 6 two 5/5 makes up for the lost tempo; in vengeance it's absolute bonkers. I forsee that a Belphegor -> Baphomet -> Serpent will be the source of much woe in the coming expansion.

Grail is yet another strong wincon card for haven. It's pretty easy to see how to use this: Drop it at turn 8, pop it with dogma in turn 9 and play Dis' Damnation/Servant of Darkness.

Owlcat is just amazing, both artwise and effectwise. He wipes al those pesky 1/3 and 1/4 wards, while also being able to murder tokens like knights or fairies or bats. Forest gets another nice amulet that stops aggro dead in their tracks, while Shadow gets a mini-Nepthys in amulet form. Ambush sword gets some love, Daria gets new card that people will complain about, and Dragon gets a novice trooper with bane.

edited 12th Mar '17 9:16:00 PM by FlowingCotton

I just love the flavor for Maelstrom Serpent. This hydra with infinite heads.

edited 13th Mar '17 1:05:59 AM by Clarste

Elf Queen 7pp 6/6 Fanfare: Restore defense to your leader by X. Then change your shadows to 0. X is the number of shadows.

Well, Control Forest is officially here, and they specifically designed it so it doesn't just mean PTP again!

Another set of reveals from the newest issue of Famitsu.

Sword got a another crazy 7 drop in form of Roland, which summons an amulet that lowers all incoming damage to 4. Pretty crazy against D Shift, shuts down Roach as well as Silver Bolt. Forest got a wincon in form of two 4/5 bodies with Ward and Storm for 10pp, cue crying Genesis Dragon in the corner but I suppose Forest can't ramp which is why they can get away with it.

Haven gets a really effective cooldown-reduction amulet for 3pp which lowers all countdown amulets played from hand by 1. This means Heretical Inquiry, Death Sentence and Pious Fox become instants (Heretical being instant is *big*, because it's basically a non-ER Calamitous Curse for 3pp). Shadow gets a slightly shittier Cerberus, Dragon gets an interesting new 'effect' which uses floating pp as attack boost in form of Rahab (who's also a 4pp 2/5 ward, perfect as a defensive option after T2 Oracle).

It's pretty easy to see that we're probably going to have a control meta. I'm slightly worried that D Shift will become very prevalent during the expansion.

In case you didn't realize, there's also been a steady stream of cards announced over twitter.

New Earth Rite legendary:

Hulking Giant: 6 cost 6/6 Can't be targeted by enemy spells and effects. Fanfare: Discard all Earth Sigil from your hand and +2/+2 for every sigil discarded.

Kind of an all-in card, but finally gives a good chance to fight back against the D Shift, which is sure to be popular next expansion? They don't really have any way to answer this immediately besides Fire Chains which doesn't see a lot of play at the moment, especially if it gets huge. Besides dropping Flame Beast early I guess.

It seems like they know it'll be a control meta and are specifically making options for control decks to overcome D Shift with?

edited 16th Mar '17 8:56:35 AM by Moekou

Well, I think it's more like they hope it's a control meta, but we'll see what actually happens. I don't think any of the control tools they've introduced, including the Hulking Giant and the Deepwood whatever for forest that has Bane for leaders, will make these decks competitive with Dshift or Seraph. It's hard to beat "instantly win from no board".

That said, with the Hulking Giant and the other new Rune card that refills both players' hands, I guess Pt P Earth Rite might be making a comeback.

edited 21st Mar '17 3:59:34 AM by Clarste

Wait, unless I'm reading this wrong, shouldn't Bloody Mary + Belphegor instantly kill your opponent on turn 9, as long as you're not in Vengeance? It says she deals damage to your leader until you reach 10, but you'll never reach 10 because it's hitting the enemy's face. This "deal damage until X" is the exact same wording as Deepwood Anomaly, which we know will kill leaders.

That said, I guess mechanically it might just mean "deal exactly enough damage to leave them at X HP", where X is 10 for Belphegor and 0 for Deepwood.

edited 21st Mar '17 4:31:48 AM by Clarste

From what I hear, it should work the exact same way as Azazel so it would only select the number of damage to deal once, then other affects apply afterwards. That's why Astaroth's Reckoning dealing damage until opponent's HP is lowered to 1 will kill them with JO crystal. Also people are questioning if Deepwood Anomaly can actually kill the opponent if Durandal is on the field.

People on reddit at least are crying about the death of aggro with so many anti-aggro cards, or cards like Elf Queen that can just heal away most of the damage dealt so far.

Thing is though, Earth Rite isn't weak against Seraph with all the Petrifications, it's D Shift it autoloses to. It depends on the build, but if they're removal heavy, D Shift can't autowin on turn 8 if they are unable to find targets on the field to play their spells on, slowing the spellboost cycle. That's why one recommended strategy for Seraph players against them is to play nothing but above 3 cost amulets and removal yourself, passing the turn if necessary. Unless they tech Fire Chains and hoping it's boosted enough, D Shift as of now simply has no good way to answer a huge Hulking Giant as their usual Wind Blasts, Fiery Embrace, and Crimson Sorcery won't work. They have to split the teching decisions though, because they might also want to tech Petrification for Durandal. It doesn't hurt that the gold card Elder Mage of Dragonlore creates a Windblast dragon giving Earth Rite access to 5 storm damage, 7 with with evo, potentially finishing them off if they got hit by Hulking Giant and Crimson Sorceries before.

edited 21st Mar '17 9:00:27 AM by Moekou

All cards have been revealed! I am so excited for Ramp Dragon and Earth Rite this expansion. Also maybe I'll finally make a real Bloodcraft deck that's not the budget aggro variant, and finally get to experience Vengeance.

edited 22nd Mar '17 11:11:21 AM by Moekou

Dragoncraft somehow ended up getting it pretty good especially with Lightning Blast, the best board clear in the game. Ouroboros and mini-Lucifer with ramp both are fairly solid legendaries. It's going to be pretty expensive, though.

Also we're getting Backdraft Take 2 mode in private matches! This should be a lot of fun. Also the ability to arrange deck orders in the deck select screen, another feature Hearthstone seem to lack. One important point mentioned in the patch notes is the Take 2 card pool; Apparently Standard cards and non-bronze Basic cards are rotating out, which means the card pool now consists of:

• Rage of Bahamut
• Tempest of the Gods
• Darkness Evolved
• Basic bronzes.

A pretty good update. Still a week away but I can wait that long.

So now that Tempest has been out for a couple of days, how's everyone finding it? I somehow ended up maining Shadowcraft for serious climbing, even though I considered to be one of my weakest classes in Ro B as far as card pool went.

To be more precise, I run a grindier midrange version of the Prince Catacomb deck with double Demonlord Eachtar for burst, since that kind of list lines up really well with the few Shadowcraft gold cards I actually have three copies of (Death's Breath and Shadow Reaper, which were used in completely different and incompatible archetypes during Ro B).

Having said that, I managed to a lot of the high-rarity Bloodcraft cards too (double Serpent, triple Blood Moon, triple Galretto, double Belphegor with one more crafted via vials), so I want to make that work too, preferably as a midrange list, but I still need to craft.pull golds from the standard set like Temptress Vampire and more copies of Diabolic Drain and Righteous Devil.

I got royally screwed by the pulls; I managed to put together a middling Bloodcraft deck that's using the ever popular curve of Blood Moon -> Belphegor -> Baphomet -> Maelstrom Serpent except I'm missing all the Belphegors. One blood deck that I'm interested in trying out is he OTK one, which involves playing Azazel, Laura and Razory Claw on turn 10.

Regarding Shadow, honestly I never thought Catacomb and Orthrus will be so great for aggro; makes me kinda regret not crafting those Cerberuses. Now Shadow has a board so sticky it's not funny. And Eachtar can easily turn any board into lethal.

Currently, I'm running a Silver Bolt Forestcraft deck which has Elf Queens, Sukuna, Jungle Warden, and Beetle Warrior put in. Beetle Warrior is basically forest's Albert (3/5 damage turn 5). A lot of people doesn't get Sukuna and let her live, which basically allows me to slam their face for 6 especially if I can get Tia out in the same turn. Elf Queen late game easily heals me back to full health, allowing me to survive the wolf turn.

Dragon is broken as expected. Zell combos are pretty insane but my God those decks are expensive. Overall this expansion makes for a really fun meta, maybe it's because D Shift isn't as prevalent.

I've been experimenting with Hulking Giant, but I'm pretty sure it's terrible. Or at least terrible in a meta saturated with Ramp Dragon and Aegis Haven. It's way too slow to matter against an aggro deck, a complete joke to deal with for a control deck (Ramp Dragon can Sahaquiel-Bahamut, evolve an Ouroboros, cheat out a Zeus, etc, or just survive a turn and Lightning Blast. Haven lol), and even against a Tempo deck they can just trade 2-3 guys into it and still come out ahead because the Earth Rite player just discarded most of their hand. And that's assuming the best-case scenario where they even draw the giant in the first 6 turns. After turn 6 the Giant is a joke no matter how you slice it, and the deck has no way to even attempt to tutor it because it doesn't count as an Earth Rite card for Dwarf Alchemist.

On the other hand, Face Dragon seems to be doing quite well for me now. Not because of anything they added (I haven't changed the deck at all, actually), but just because the control/combo decks are greedier than ever, so it's relatively easy to kill them by turn 6 while they spam ramp cards.

edited 2nd Apr '17 7:58:37 PM by Clarste

I just started playing Face Dragon and it's fun and doing pretty well! I did change it a lot though and added in Sibyls, Aina, and Grimnir to have a better matchup against Aggro Shadow.

Someone posted a Silverbolt Deck that took out all Ancient Elves (replaced with Grimnirs), 1 drops, and Roaches and said it was working better for him. I kinda want to test true Control Forest out!

Overall, both Ramp Dragon and Dragoncraft as a whole has just a tiny bit above 50% win rate, so despite the complaints and cries it's actually one of the least oppressive top played meta decks compared to past expansions. On the other hand, Aggro Shadow is sitting at at above 57%, however, time will tell if it will last or it will be like Aggro Blood during the last expansion's onset.

New expansion incoming with an Alice In Wonderland theme! It's called Wonderland Dreams, with Alice herself as the cover Neutral Legendary.

First 8 cards revealed (translations from Reddit)

edited 30th May '17 11:30:52 AM by Moekou

It's now time for the threads title to become very ironic!