Hi !

It’s been over two weeks since Rise of Bahamut, the Shadowverse expansion, was released and the metagame is looking pretty established. In this article, I will be giving you my thoughts on the current metagame, my own tier list, as well as some sample deck lists from Japanese tournaments and Game-Ai. A shout out to Gamepress (link) for gathering all the decklists to 1 place! Finally, at the end of the article, there will be an interview with Railgun, a popular Shadowverse streamer. In it, he shares his impression on the metagame as well as the current state of Shadowverse.

Metagame analysis.

The current state of the game has the metagame highly polarized around Tempo Runecraft. Not only has this deck archetype seen an incredible amount of play, it is very powerful. If your deck is unable to handle Daria, then it is nearly impossible to bring it to ladder.

The second most played deck would be Aggro Bloodcraft. Right now, it stands as the fastest deck in the metagame. The two new cards from this expansion, Veight, Vampiric Noble and Yurius, Levin Duke are powerful threats which can deal an absurd amount of damage or drastically increase board presence.

However, the other classes are starting to adapt, and most of them have found a good solution. Control Sword and Miracle Roach have both found a place in the meta and is looking very good right now. Even classes that haven’t changed too much in the new expansion such as Havencraft have found ways to stay competitive. Interestingly enough, Dragoncraft, which was thought to be a strong class coming into this expansion with cards like Draconic Fervour and Breath of the Salamander seems to be the big loser of this expansion.

Tier-list

Tier 1 :

Tempo Runecraft : decklist

Tempo Runecraft could quite possibly be thought of as tier 0. This class has really strong tempo plays with Levi + Piercing Rune combo and Daria. A turn 5 Daria is nigh unstoppable for most decks. This deck’s hardest matchup would be heavy control decks such as Control Bloodcraft and Seraph Havencraft because of cards like Themis’s Decree and Revelation to wipe the board.

Aggro Blood : decklist

This deck is incredibly fast, often winning as soon as turn 5 and 6. Not only is it potent, it is cheap to make so it is easily accessible by everyone if they need a competitive deck. Unlike Daria, this deck is more easily counter-able. If the metagame becomes more control heavy and more people start teching more answers, this deck could drop to tier 2.

Tier 2

Miracle Roach : decklist (my own article)

Although not as powerful as it was before people starting playing more control heavy lists with wards, it is still in a very comfortable spot right now. It has favourable matches against the tier 1 decks and is flexible enough to tech answers archetypes like Control Swordcraft and Earth Rite Runecraft if they become more popular.

Earth rite Runecraft : decklist

This deck is in a pretty good spot right now, Dwarf Alchemist and Professor of Taboos provided quite a substantial buff and helped to cover some of the weaknesses Earth Rite Runecraft had from before this expansion. Dwarf Alchemist helps to improve the consistency of the deck by providing another way to obtain an Earth Sigil. If necessary, evolving this card is quite good too as it tutors you an Earth Rite card. Professor of Taboos is an amazing card because not only does it remove your opponent’s board, it builds your own at the same time. Currently, the deck is positioned quite well in the metagame with a good matchup against Tempo Runecraft and Aggro Bloodcraft. However, it does struggle against the other control decks that are rising in popularity.

Control Sword : decklist

The aim of Control Swordcraft is to outvalue their opponents with their followers. Albert, Levin Saber plays an important role in this because of its amazing flexibility. After turn 5 it can be used to trade without burning an evolution point and after turn 9 it can be used as a late game finisher to close out the game. There are also a lot of tech options available to change the deck or to improve the different matchups such as Alexander and Fangblade Slayer. For now, the decklist is still being refined and streamlined to improve consistency and could potentially be a tier 1 deck in the future.

Control Bloodcraft : decklist

Control Bloodcraft has arguably the best matchup against Tempo Runecraft, and with Tempo Runecraft being so prevalent in the meta, this is a great trait to have. It has lots of removal and ways to heal, and can easily reset the board if it gets out of hand with Revelation. It also quite favourable against other control decks because of how greedy Control Bloodcraft decks tend to be. What’s stopping it is how prevalent Miracle Roach decks have become, which it has a very poor-matchup against.

Haven elana/seraph variant : decklist

Elana, Seraph, or Hybrid Havencraft hasn’t changed much with the introduction of Rise of Bahamut; however, they remain quite effective. Tribunal of Good and Evil has proven to be quite effective in removing early giant bodies like Ancient Elf or Aurelia while Ancient Lion Spirit could be used to destroy wide boards. Unfortunately, Odin is still a card other control decks can use to completely stop a Seraph combo so I would recommend playing an Elana hybrid to avoid being completely rekted by Odin.

D-shift rune : decklist

While it is far less popular than before ROB because of the prevalence of aggro decks like Aggro Bloodcraft, Tempo Runecraft, and Miracle Roach, this deck will always remain the best way to beat control decks. With more control decks seeing play and favourable matchups against a lot of the tier 2 and 3 decks, Dimension Shift Runecraft remains a deck to watch out for.

Tier 3

Nephtys Shadow : decklist

Although Nepthys has proven to be an amazing card, this deck is still quite inconsistent. It also doesn’t have a really favourable matchup outside of Ramp Dragon and Miracle Roach. However, the decklists are still being refined and it has won a JCG tournament so there appears to be promising potential to rise in rankings in the future.

Aggro Shadow : decklist

Pre-ROB, common consensus was that Aggro Shadow was not a very good deck. However, with the addition of Shadow Reaper, the deck has shown to be quite potent. Unfortunately, as far as aggro decks go, Aggro Shadowcraft seems to trail behind its counterparts and the cards people have been teching against aggro lists are quite effective in dealing with Aggro Shadowcraft as well.

Ramp Dragon : decklist

While the deck in and of itself is not bad, there are simply other decks that do the same thing Dragoncraft does but better. It is also hard to find a balance between all the high cost followers and the ramp to make the deck truly consistent.

Storm haven : decklist

Previously one of the strongest decks in the meta, but now it is a tier 3 deck. The new cards for this deck archetype haven’t proven to be really impactful. Luxwing Reno, while has great potential, isn’t too great in a meta dominated by Night Horde and Piercing Rune – making Mainyuu still the best choice. Beastcall Aria, once considered by many to be overpowered for its cost, is too slow to deal with all the aggro running around and Kaleidoscopic Glow has become more frustrating to deal with than ever before. The nail in the coffin seems to be all the tools the common control decks have to deal with Storm Havencraft, allowing all of them to sport a positive winrate against this deck.

Railgun’s interview

And now, it’s time for the interview! Railgun is a popular Shadowverse streamer and even has a subscription button. 😮 He has won Panda Cup #2 in Darkness Evolved and more recently placed top 6 in the SEA/OCE tournament hosted by Excelsior Gaming. You can find him at https://www.twitch.tv/railgun17

Q: Can you introduce yourself?

A: Hello, my name is Aday and I go by the name of “Railgun” online. I have been playing and streaming Shadowverse since August 2016.

Q: ROB is out for 2 weeks now and the metagame is pretty solved at this point. What are you thoughts on the current metagame ? 

A: Like most other people that I know, I like the current meta much less than before ROB came out. The reason for my distaste is because of how prevalent and oppressive aggro blood and tempo rune feel when playing on ladder. As Forest main, I hate Yurius. I have absolutely no clue why Cygames decided to print a card like that. It’s a 2pp card that can do around 3-4 damage to your face, practically winning the game all on it’s own. The sad part is, there isn’t much Forestcraft can do about it. Sorry if it sounds like I’m ranting, but I really hate that card.

However, there are some good changes as well. The major one being the decrease in the popularity of DShift, giving control decks more breathing room.

Still, I don’t think I can agree with the statement of the meta being solved. For example, the most dominant deck of the previous meta was Tempo Forest with goblins. However, it only started to gain popularity about 2 months after Darkness Evovled was released. So I think it is probable that there are still decks out there that people haven’t worked out yet.

Q: What cygames needs to bring in the next expansions to shake up the metagame? (I would ask something like if cygames should nerf something)

A: Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a question I can give a proper answer for. I just hope that devs in Cygames know what they are doing.

Q : The western SV scene has been growing bigger. You previously won Panda Cup #2 and more recently played in the Excelsior Gaming SEA/OCE tournament, how do you feel about the western competitive scene?

A: I feel that the western competitive scene is growing and we have the individuals who are hosting tournaments and actively trying to improve the SV scene to thank for it.

Q: Do you think there is a real gap between Japanese players’ level and western players ?

A: I don’t know if a gap truly exists, but the dedication of JP players to this game is certainly much greater. Just take a look at top 100 master players, they are mostly Japanese; only a few are from the west. This is because there are fewer players in the English community willing to grind the ladder for 8-10 hours a day.

Q: The most currently played digital CCG is Hearthstone. What cygames needs to do in order to compete with Hearthstone?

A: In my opinion, there is nothing Cygames can do to compete with Hearthstone because of its loyal player base. Rather than other CCG’s taking initiative to gain popularity, it is up to Blizzard to not lose their fans.

Despite this, I believe Shadowverse is doing a great job with the hand it was dealt. As far as I know, it is the second most popular digital CCG in the west. As long as they continue on with their current business practices – such as being generous to their free to play playerbase, adding new and exciting features like the replay system, and don’t horribly ruin the meta – they will continue to grow.

Q: Is there something that you would like to add?

A: A shout-out to my discord server for correcting the grammatical mistakes I made and to Ndoumz for interviewing me.

Thank you, Railgun, for the interview.

Don’t forget to catch and follow his stream at https://www.twitch.tv/railgun17 !

Conclusion

Thank you everyone for reading this article and I hope you have found it insightful. If the metagame shakes up in the coming weeks, I’ll do another with an updated tier list.

If you like what you read here, please let me know and I’ll try to do more in the future.

Ciao!