Cardgame Thread (guilds of ravnica mechanics spoiled!)

Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
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Current Shadowverse meta:

"With a bang and a boom!" cancer.
"It's me, cancer."

Don't get me wrong I still like the game, I just don't really know what Cygames was thinking with Daria. I'm almost at the AA0 trials with a Storm Ramp Dragoncraft that is pretty close to yours, Matthew . Just has Genesis over Bahamut (partially because I don't have him, partially because I wanted to play something different) and Seabrands instead of Conflagration (been finding Slamander and Blazing to be enough Breath). Climbed about 1500ish today and might plug away at it a little later.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Current Shadowverse meta:

"With a bang and a boom!" cancer.
"It's me, cancer."

Don't get me wrong I still like the game, I just don't really know what Cygames was thinking with Daria. I'm almost at the AA0 trials with a Storm Ramp Dragoncraft that is pretty close to yours, Matthew . Just has Genesis over Bahamut (partially because I don't have him, partially because I wanted to play something different) and Seabrands instead of Conflagration (been finding Slamander and Blazing to be enough Breath). Climbed about 1500ish today and might plug away at it a little later.
Yeah, I've had a lot of luck with Control Sword and Control Shadow lately (I run a list with only one Neph as a "win-more" card and 2x Cerberus as a means of gaining some reach).

It seems that the meta revolves around the top 4 decks and countering them with stuff like Control Sword or Earth Rite seems to be one of the best ways to do so (although I've found that Control Sword has a little bit of a tougher time vs Seraph decks).
 
I finally crafted a proper non-control deck (Combrei Aggro) and boy does it make laddering so much more bearable. Today I played a bunch of Feln to do a quest and the run included a 7-loss streak, doubt that's gonna happen with proactive decks.

Still fuck Xenan Obelisk.

And control needs better cards, definitely.
 
I finally crafted a proper non-control deck (Combrei Aggro) and boy does it make laddering so much more bearable. Today I played a bunch of Feln to do a quest and the run included a 7-loss streak, doubt that's gonna happen with proactive decks.

Still fuck Xenan Obelisk.

And control needs better cards, definitely.
Yeah aggro/midrange makes for better laddering simply because every time you dodge a control mirror you save 30 minutes.

I made the Feln deck the other day and I like it. Each control deck has a lot of tools that make it unique, and plenty of valid options to adjust to the metagame within your colors. The only control deck I can't get really consistent is Icaria Blue, mostly because there are a lot of double influence requirements that tend to make me take some kind of risk in my starting hand, even with all the fixing and card draw the deck has.
 
Icaria Blue has not been in a great position because the deck as it's normally built struggles vs Rakano which is still popular. If Felnscar and midrange decks like Combrei get more popular then expect this deck to rise up.

There is a MAJOR patch coming with the new promo cards today. Really loving how Dire Wolf shakes up the meta every month unlike some card games (ahem Hearthstone)
 
I've been playing a lot of ranked Shadowverse since RoB dropped, I was around 25,000 before the patch, and I'm up to about 40,000 (AA1) now. D-shift was good for the first few days of the expansion, while everyone was still tuning their decks and trying to figure out what was good, but after awhile I started losing rank with it so since then I've switched mostly to playing Havencraft decks. Garuda Haven has been pretty good, Luxwing Reno is just a solid addition that can evolve and attack a follower while hitting your opponent's face for 2 damage in the process, and Valhallan General feels like an extra Garuda effect (+3 face damage on turn 6). Ancient Lion Spirit is just an excellent card, often becomes a 4-for-one or better against Daria.

Pre-RoB, I did most of my ranked climbing with an Elana/Seraph hybrid. I've found that post-RoB, Elana is probably the worst part of the lifegain deck: being able to just gain life puts you out of range of a lot of aggro decks, but spending turn 3 off to cast the amulet just leads to you getting out-tempo'd most of the time. Elana was at its best against lifegain decks like midrange sword, which seem to have mostly dried up after RoB, so now I'm just running Seraph. You beat most of the fast decks simply by gaining enough life to survive until the late game, and you beat most slow decks (like control blood) with the inevitability that Seraph offers, but things get a bit dicey against faster combo decks like Roach and Dshift that are capable of winning faster than you are with the right draw.

Overall my impressions of the post-RoB meta: I don't like it as much as I did before the patch. It feels like a lot of the best decks in the format are less interactive than before, midrange decks seem to have all but evaporated, and control decks seem to struggle when it comes to dealing with alternate wincons. (As a Seraph player, matchups like control blood just feel like freerolls to me most of the time; I will always be able to pack more Seraphs than they have Odins). Looking back on the pre-RoB meta, the most dominant decks were things like tempo forest and midrange sword, and I felt like those decks just offered way more decision trees, a lot of time the forest player would be looking at multiple options between slamming Cynthia, dropping Tia, or flooding the board with fairies and trying to play with Liza, while the new Roach deck seems much more linear. Sword used to be about grinding out incremental resource advantages by managing the board effectively, now it feels like it's just trying to survive until turn 9 when it can slam Albert and hit face for 10. I don't think that Daria is necessarily better than decks like PTP forest used to be, but it feels more frustrating to play against because it feels like a lot of the result comes down to the variance of their draws and whether they're able to chain Darias.

So yeah, I'm thinking of taking a bit of a break from Shadowverse.



Magic dropped a new set, and perhaps more significantly (or at least surprisingly), several new bans. The new "splinter twin" combo with Saheeli seems like the kind of thing that might also get banned after the PT with their new banning policy (which is apparently much more liberal), so I'm a bit loathe to spend money on standard cards for fear of the meta being shaken up too much. I'm in Pittsburgh and GP Pittsburgh is going to be taking place right after the Pro Tour so I'll probably break down and buy something like UR or UB control for that since they seem to be relatively cheap apart from the Gearhulks. (Or maybe I'll avoid the main event and just play side events all day.)

My modern deck (Infect) got hit by the Gitaxian Probe ban, so I'm waiting to see how the dust settles on that, but with the printing of Fatal Push I'm kinda tempted to try something like Esper or Grixis as I've always liked playing the blue control decks.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
I've been playing a lot of ranked Shadowverse since RoB dropped, I was around 25,000 before the patch, and I'm up to about 40,000 (AA1) now. D-shift was good for the first few days of the expansion, while everyone was still tuning their decks and trying to figure out what was good, but after awhile I started losing rank with it so since then I've switched mostly to playing Havencraft decks. Garuda Haven has been pretty good, Luxwing Reno is just a solid addition that can evolve and attack a follower while hitting your opponent's face for 2 damage in the process, and Valhallan General feels like an extra Garuda effect (+3 face damage on turn 6). Ancient Lion Spirit is just an excellent card, often becomes a 4-for-one or better against Daria.

Pre-RoB, I did most of my ranked climbing with an Elana/Seraph hybrid. I've found that post-RoB, Elana is probably the worst part of the lifegain deck: being able to just gain life puts you out of range of a lot of aggro decks, but spending turn 3 off to cast the amulet just leads to you getting out-tempo'd most of the time. Elana was at its best against lifegain decks like midrange sword, which seem to have mostly dried up after RoB, so now I'm just running Seraph. You beat most of the fast decks simply by gaining enough life to survive until the late game, and you beat most slow decks (like control blood) with the inevitability that Seraph offers, but things get a bit dicey against faster combo decks like Roach and Dshift that are capable of winning faster than you are with the right draw.

Overall my impressions of the post-RoB meta: I don't like it as much as I did before the patch. It feels like a lot of the best decks in the format are less interactive than before, midrange decks seem to have all but evaporated, and control decks seem to struggle when it comes to dealing with alternate wincons. (As a Seraph player, matchups like control blood just feel like freerolls to me most of the time; I will always be able to pack more Seraphs than they have Odins). Looking back on the pre-RoB meta, the most dominant decks were things like tempo forest and midrange sword, and I felt like those decks just offered way more decision trees, a lot of time the forest player would be looking at multiple options between slamming Cynthia, dropping Tia, or flooding the board with fairies and trying to play with Liza, while the new Roach deck seems much more linear. Sword used to be about grinding out incremental resource advantages by managing the board effectively, now it feels like it's just trying to survive until turn 9 when it can slam Albert and hit face for 10. I don't think that Daria is necessarily better than decks like PTP forest used to be, but it feels more frustrating to play against because it feels like a lot of the result comes down to the variance of their draws and whether they're able to chain Darias.

So yeah, I'm thinking of taking a bit of a break from Shadowverse.



Magic dropped a new set, and perhaps more significantly (or at least surprisingly), several new bans. The new "splinter twin" combo with Saheeli seems like the kind of thing that might also get banned after the PT with their new banning policy (which is apparently much more liberal), so I'm a bit loathe to spend money on standard cards for fear of the meta being shaken up too much. I'm in Pittsburgh and GP Pittsburgh is going to be taking place right after the Pro Tour so I'll probably break down and buy something like UR or UB control for that since they seem to be relatively cheap apart from the Gearhulks. (Or maybe I'll avoid the main event and just play side events all day.)

My modern deck (Infect) got hit by the Gitaxian Probe ban, so I'm waiting to see how the dust settles on that, but with the printing of Fatal Push I'm kinda tempted to try something like Esper or Grixis as I've always liked playing the blue control decks.

I agree about the lack of solid midrange decks in Shadowverse. I believe that the offending cards vary greatly and given the right changes, could allow for more proper deck diversity. So far I've switched to playing control blood with 3x Odin to deal with seraph decks. It's been pretty effective and I like how the deck is able to handle most daria lists that do not run petrify.
 

Matthew

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Inching closer to master rank. The grind from A0-A3 was pretty fucking rough but I broke down and crafted one Odin for tonight's grind and it did win me games actually. So that was fun and surprising.


(not shown 3x Blazing Breath 2x Unicorn Dancer).

This is getting closer to my idealized control list. The final tweaks I want are another Odin and 2x Lucifer in place of the Neptune's and either a Bahamut or Olivia. Neptune is a cool card but it's a weak evolve and Lucifer just applies so much more towards defeating aggro than a 5/5 ward. I incorporated Genesis Dragon after cutting Urd and the Wyvern's since I didn't have as much burst from hand as I liked. That and Bahamut + Genesis = 20 so if they can't drop two minions GG. Odin actually was disappointing in this evening's games. Aside from one Seraph deck that I just burst down since I got all my ramp, Fortes and Genesis, I've been playing against a bunch of blood aggro and forest decks (PTP, Silverbolt, and roach this evening). It's kind of swayed me from my idealized list for dragon control but I think it's still probably best (though maybe 2x Oliva 1x Odin? I'm not sure 2x Lucifer is 100%).

Midrange isn't dead, it just can't handle heavy control like shadow, blood, and dragon. It's early game against aggro I think is fine (though the only mid deck I can think of is sword so maybe it is an issue), but midrange threats can't keep up with Baha, Neph, and Lucifer. I think there is a new expansion on the horizon (fuck) so there could be room for midrange to grow a bit more.

I do think that combo decks are really what are hindering midrange. Without healing and reliance on board-trading decks like PTP, Silverbolt, Roach, and Seraph have all the time in the world to set up their combo. Cheaper, conditional, banishes could help against Seraph but more minions like Dragon Warrior will 100% push those types of decks.

Meh, game is still fun but I just like card games.
 


I did it :D

After getting to Diamond on the back of Combrei Aggro, I switched to an aggressive version of Stonescar Burn with Bandit Queen and well, it looked like a lot of people had the same idea! It felt like the ladder was 60% Stonescar, 20% Rakano and 20% everything else. I guess that's what happens when people want to make a late season push, these decks are the most efficient after all.
 
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Okay, a follow-up on my previous post complaining about the current RoB meta in Shadowverse: a friend sent me an updated d-shift list to try out and I've having a lot more fun now. Plays very much like classic d-shift with a few new additions (like piercing rune and secrets of erasmus) that make it feel like it's on the power level of most of the new decks, and like classic d-shift it's a very skill-testing deck that offers lots of interesting lines. The tempo and value you get from Levi + piercing rune is enough to make the deck competitive against faster decks like Daria and aggro blood, and sometimes you can win games by dropping an early flame destroyer instead of saving it for a combo kill. Despite looking like a linear combo deck, it can sometimes just win by playing an honest midrange game. Here's the list:



Shadowverse is fun again. Or as my pal Levi would say, "It's just like back in the old days!"
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Yeah, looks like the deck that was run in the JCG Open tourney with the only change being -1x Angelic Snipe, -1x Windblast over 2xPiercing Runes (og post was 3x but I realized I made a typo).

On a different subject, I hope you are absolutely proud of yourself for playing cancer incarnate (aggro blood).
 
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Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus




Here's the decklist: https://shadowverse-portal.com/deck...BUS.65BUS.65BUS.694Vo.694Vo.61NLm.61NLm.61NLm

Pretty similar to Matthew's save for a few differences in card amounts between some followers (three Goblinmounts and two Bahamuts rather than 2/3 the other way) and I also pack two Blazing Breaths. Was beating all the cancer stuff on the way up and especially on the win streak, I think 7 of the 8 games were against Daria Tempo Rune or Aggro Blood.

Definitely learned a lot about deck building from just reading posts and my own experience, so thanks to Acklow, Matthew, and Kikuichimonji for the posts, I always look forward to them. If a card is good in a vacuum (i.e. Forte) it more than likely always gets 3 copies, but if it's something more conditional (i.e. Siegfried) it's probably a 1 or 2 off. That and I learned a lot about the mull from playing something other than aggressive/midrangey decks. Always felt that I had to play like Druid in HS and look for Wild Growth, but just removing or putting up a Ward each turn to stave off aggro too is fine; you should get some ramp mechanic such as Oracle/Aiela/Fervor in time to tempo out your opponent.
 

Matthew

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Not going to lie I think that the grind in the AA's is 100% worse than the climb from rank 5 to legend in Hearthstone. Jesus christ.


(not shown 2x Genesis Dragon)

Here it is! This is basically what I was looking for when I started my control list and I've pretty much gotten it down. I think some numbers on the non-legendary(diamond?) cards could be adjusted, but it's been preforming well for me and I'm proud to have a list that I can call my own that has climbed this well so far. Cutting Neptune was an easy call, just a weak evolve and a 5/5 ward with a 2/2 that evolves with the 5/5 (but the 5/5 stays the same stats) was just pretty gross. Lucifer is much better, staving off aggressive decks with his instant heal and the 6/7 body is annoying enough that it has to be dealt with. I cut Olivia entirely. I don't think Evolve is that strong right now unless you're looking for two extra reach or you run Piercing Rune and Levi. Not to mention that Olivia costing 9 mana leads to some terribly awkward turns in the late game. 8 drop or 10 drop if you're capped on mana, at the very least it provides some flexibility.

This list isn't perfect, to say the very least. I'm pretty sure Roach has killed me every time I've played against it, but that's also the nature of playing a control deck vs a combo deck. Other match-ups seem pretty solid though. With the Dragon Warrior offering a solid Evolve tempo play against aggro decks and then versus control decks you play as more the aggressor, you do have 5x storm cards that hit for 5+ a pop.

I can't seem to handle control Sword that well, I just think with Albert burst, the Fangblade, and the ability to flood board every turn just leaves me unfavored unless I get a good Breath of the Salamander and can drop something alongside it.

AA0 ladder was basically Roach, aggro Blood, aggro Shadow (not sure what happened to control Shadow I liked that deck), and Daria. Daria decks are really no problem given the healing I have, the tempo plays, and Bahamut to seal out the boards they build.

All-in-all I'm happy with this list and a lot of the cards I have in here will fit happily into the control Sword I hope to craft in this coming month.
 

Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
From personal experience and some of the YT content/streamers I've watched, Aggro Shadow does very well against Aggro Blood (although whoever goes first does gain a large advantage, similar to the Aggro Blood mirror), usually burns out combo lists like Roach and with 11 max damage off of Phantom Howl + Coco + Mimi can close out a game pretty quickly against Daria. Control just wouldn't fair nearly as well in the current meta, it doesn't swing as hard and doesn't really have the big burst plays that a Dragon list like yours would have, and I feel Control lists need a few things like that to prevent combo.

I've also seen Elana Seraph Haven and some pure Seraph Haven. I think I actually prefer pure Seraph with more healing; spending 3 to just play Elana's Prayer is too much of a tempo sink. Same reason I like Aggro Blood without Vania, Fortress etc. atm. Spending 2 orbs to just play Fortress is too much of a sink against other Aggro.
 
And on the final day, Mulligan reached the Master rank in Eternal and Mulligan said it was good



Got in at 680 which is pretty low, but expected given this is the last day of the season. I don't think that's too bad since we got shorted 4 days this season because last season was 5 weeks long as opposed to 4.
 
just got shadowverse looking for a break from shamanstone and liking it so far, definitely want to play some more!!

523993540 add me if you want to :)
 
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Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
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two more shitty ladders to climb before I get to Master and can just focus on collecting cards, SeemsGood.


(not shown 2x Unicorn, 2x Blazing Breath, 2x Genesis)

As the meta changes as should my deck. I realized fairly early within AA1 that Healing Angel is a bad card that is really more of a hindrance and that there should be better cards to actually keep control of the board or keep tempo. With the abundance of Roach within AA1 I realized that I needed more wards and Owl Guardian is a pretty great ward that has a powerful evolve to boot. Often times the Blazing Breath, Unicorn, and Aiela are dead cards in my hand late game, so using them as owl fodder doesn't even feel bad (though I've had to owl a Forte once or twice). Since I have a lot of good evolve effects in Dragon Warrior, Lucifer, and Owl it only makes sense to include Olivia back in the list. I was originally running 2x Olivia with 2x Forte, but I often felt that I didn't have the reach I needed where I need to be aggressive in control mirrors (Seraph, Haven in general really, Blood control, and Dragon mirror, where Forte is broken).

Been seeing a lot of decks similar to mine on the ladder nearing the end of AA1, which I thought was hilarious since I don't consider it to be a t1 or even t2 deck. I'm not sure how decks come about in the meta of Shadowverse. The twitch community only plays Roach, Seraph, and Daria and the gamepress website doesn't seem that reliable.

As far as my list goes I think I'm weak to super heavy late game control that runs Satan, and then it becomes such a race. I've been told that 3x Bahamuts is too much, you have to remember that since you have 3x of them you don't have to be greedy with them and can slam them on a board of 2 minions.
 
Shadowverse update:

I spent a bit of time grinding my way through AA3 rotating between d-shift, seraph, and storm haven. These are decks that I enjoy playing, but none of them feel particularly well-positioned in the current meta, and at some point I went on a massive losing streak and backslid all the way into AA2. Around that time, I happened to open a third copy of Daria while cracking RoB packs, and decided that as long as Daria was still busted, I might as well use the deck myself to climb rank rather than just complain about losing to it. That allowed me to quickly climb through AA3 and the placement matches for masters (I wasn't keeping track of my winrate, but it felt absurdly high, like at one point I was on a 12-match win streak).

Here's the deck that got me into masters:


I'm not even sure if this is the best version of Daria, it leans toward aggression with Demonic Strike, and I think that the more tempo-oriented versions that play Summon Iceform might actually be a bit better positioned.

Now that I've finally clawed my way into masters, I think I'm going to put Daria on the shelf for a bit, probably going to go back to experimenting with d-shift and maybe start playing draft more until the score rewards reset at the end of the month.
 
Back at it again.



14 game win streak with an old Burn Queen list. Deck is preeeetty good in this meta. Surprised no one is talking about the new adventure expansion that came out yesterday for Eternal. It's pretty fun and is fairly newbie friendly, plus new cards etc. People that have been on the fence need to try this game out since it literally costs you nothing. About 4 months in and still having a blast!

Feeling like Travi$ Scott right now. Upper Echelon!!
 
Great job! I've been extremely busy but during the 3 day weekend I will be sure to check out the adventure and get my legend rank for the season.
 

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