Review: Shadowverse (Japanese Hearthstone)

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John Magnum
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Post by John Magnum »

I had to look up First Curse, and immediately went "Oh, that's way better than I remembered it being." Because I remembered it adding the Second Curse to your deck, not your hand. So actually if you don't mind playing cards with poor spellboost synergy, the part where it pretty much guarantees you two or three turns of keeping the board modestly clear is sick.

Maybe Ginger Rune ends up using the new healers or Summon Iceform or Timeless Witch or stuff, where they keep the game going longer but don't fit into the spellboost or Earth Rite decks.
-JM
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Post by Username17 »

So I've been running some Storm Ramp Dragon. Of the new strong decks it happened to be the easiest for me to scrape together (doesn't need a lot of the new cards, but is massively improved anyway because Sybil, Scyther, and Lightning Blast are high impact). I'm certainly considering running a Dragon Pendant deck featuring War Cyclones and Goblin Princesses, but Storm Ramp is simple and obvious and it works.

But ho my goodness does Storm Ramp stomp all over the face of Aegis. Aegis is like a legitimately terrible win condition and I just feel sorry for Eris every time I realize that is what she's trying to do.
Josh wrote:Now my question is if there's anything interesting I can do with the pair of Dark Jeanne I pulled as my TotG Havencraft Legendaries?
Dark Jeanne is a weird Legendary. Obviously there are times you play her and you instantly lose the game, which is weird because there are not a lot of cards that can potentially wrath your side of the board and make you take 10 damage to the face. By the same token however, played at the right time she wraths the opponent's side of the board and makes them take 2-8 damage and leaves a 6/6 in play singing the no fucks to give song.

So first of all, there is not and never will be a "Dark Jeanne Deck." No one will call a deck "Dark Jeanne Havencraft." Even in the decks that want her, she's a situational role player that you won't always play even in games that go long.

The decks that want Dark Jeanne are Elana Havencraft (now called "Kelana Havencraft" due to Elana's boyfriend Kel); Guardian Sun; and Storm Havencraft. Guardian Sun is still a shitty deck that you shouldn't play, so that leaves Kelana and Storm.

In Kelana, you often have scenarios where you are going to get a bunch of healing on your dudes that will go to waste if you don't have some damage to spread around. Also there will be times when it's time to smash face with big creatures that want to be even bigger. It's very easy to find situations where playing Dark Jeanne kills a dude, gives you a positive trade, and then face smashes for 2 and leaves a big Jeanne in play. That's quite good, and worth carrying her through the times that she matches up badly to the board and you can't play her at all.

In Storm Haven, you have a bunch of 3/4 Storm Regal Falcons popping up at the start of your turn, and turning them into 5/2s before elvolving is a great way to just win the game out of nowhere. Also Jeanne gets to have nice lesbian kisses with Al-Miraj, who will happily take the bonus attack power and heals the damage at end of turn.

I'm not sure either deck wants to run 2 copies of Dark Jeanne and I'm almost certain neither wants to run 3. But she's a solid card in both decks and both those decks are real. Much more real than Aegis Haven.

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Post by GreatGreyShrike »

Frank, have you considered Magic Girl Melvie in your Ginger Rune theorycrafting? It's a decent sized body at 4/4, it's card draw effect is situationally very strong, and if you don't need or want the card draw effect you can play it as a decent body off of Ginger. I could see playing it turn 5-6 after you've emptied your hand of 1-, 2- and 3- drops. Of course, it's total suicide to play Melvie's fanfare into an aggro deck, so you can't use it in that matchup.

I have been experimenting with some MGM in Dirt Rune, instead of Fate's Hand, and I've had a lot of situations where the control deck I'm playing against gets one card and I get 4+ out of it, and it feels super strong, but in the aggro matchup it's a total dead draw.
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Post by Whipstitch »

The amount of life gain people can get now is kind of annoying.
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Post by Username17 »

GreatGreyShrike wrote:Frank, have you considered Magic Girl Melvie in your Ginger Rune theorycrafting? It's a decent sized body at 4/4, it's card draw effect is situationally very strong, and if you don't need or want the card draw effect you can play it as a decent body off of Ginger. I could see playing it turn 5-6 after you've emptied your hand of 1-, 2- and 3- drops. Of course, it's total suicide to play Melvie's fanfare into an aggro deck, so you can't use it in that matchup.

I have been experimenting with some MGM in Dirt Rune, instead of Fate's Hand, and I've had a lot of situations where the control deck I'm playing against gets one card and I get 4+ out of it, and it feels super strong, but in the aggro matchup it's a total dead draw.
I've certainly considered Melvie. She's certainly strong and I randomly pulled a playset of her. The trick there is to run the 26 cards outside your Ginger package as really low to the ground and just straight up pretend that you're Aggro Rune until Turn 7 when you Drop Sahaquiel and shout "Surprise!" No Fate's Hand or spellboosts of any kind. Just cheap followers and removal and try to put your opponent on the backfoot. Get your opponent to spend their evo points and sweepers so that when your Ginger Army drops they just fucking concede and ask what the fuck just happened.

Unfortunately, I don't know if it's reliable enough. Also, it seems like you'd really get your head kicked in by Aggro and that's what the entire non-Ginger package portion of the deck is supposed to be protecting you from. So... I dunno.

Witch Bolt, Glow, and Magic Girl seem like enough card draw. The rest of the deck can have Goblins in it. Bonus points if you ever find a reason to Sahaquiel out a Goblin.

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Post by Whipstitch »

Ginger is my lone legendary so far. Otherwise I just pulled a bunch of support cannons and death's ledgers. I haven't used a single card and this expansion can go die in a fire.
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Post by John Magnum »

Frank, can I see your math on the odds of drawing a Ginger by turn 9? If you start with three, draw nine over the next nine turns, and draw three more thanks to spells or followers, you see 15 cards out of 40. As far as I can tell, the odds that at least one of those 15 is a Ginger is 1 - (25/40)(24/39)(23/38) = 76.7%, which is not over 88%. But I don't know how mulliganing affects the math. (Though even if I just treat mulliganing as "draw another 3" the odds are 84.4% so.)
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

So my reaction to the expansion:

1. It has opened the meta up - at least at the low-to-mid levels where I rank. I'm seeing a lot of weird new decks.

2. War Cyclone and Goblin Princess and some of the other neutrals are solid enough that there's probably a neutralcraft deck that just swaps in the workhorse basics/bronzes (Quickblader, Dragon Oracle, Magic Missile, etc) and is adequate for completing missions as any of the crafts.

3. Forestcraft: The new beetle is not as good as roach -- but it lets that deck run 3 more psuedo-roaches.

4. Swordcraft:
Support Cannon is not as good as I had hoped. The deck has real problems with getting behind on the curve due to slow earlygame start and then having a very hard time having a meaningful first evolution and also dropping a cannon on turn 5 to set up for the big turn 6,7,8 bombardments. Maybe a set of Gawains could fix this, maybe not.
However, iterating through variants on the deck, I did see the interaction that dropping a luminous mage into an Iron Fortress goes from "amulet only" to "board full".

Legend of Frog looks like a pretty fun variant on the pauper Banner deck.

5. Rune Craft: I don't have the cards to comment on the standard archetypes, let alone an experimental Ginger setup. Chimera is solid. Enchanted Sword is also better than I thought. I'm not sure if Mutagenic Bolt is merely a tool or if it can be a moderately reliable win condition -- I do like the Mutagenic Bolt + Timeless Witch combo to sweep their board and then damage them and laugh.

6. Dragoncraft. For casual and midrank play, Dracoramp probably got the biggest buff. Dragon's Nest is an adequate 1-drop, Scyther is really strong and Lightning Blast being only silver is a pretty big deal. Also at only silver War Cyclone is a lategame sweep and viable alternate win condition here. Adding in the higher rarity cards and this deck is pretty solid.

7. Shadowcraft. Ohh do I want to run Minty Tyrant. At more common, Dolorblade is an okay roleplayer in a tempo-lich deck that tries to win before Neph, and Zombie Party is just solid all-around.

8. Bloodcraft. The mask is decent, and does interact with Dire Bond is the beneficial way. The various Blood Moon / Belephagor / Bloody Mary / Baphomet / Maelstrom Serpent combos seem scary in theory, but I haven't seen anyone running them yet.

9. Havencraft. Grail is a more fun and interactive version of Seraph. Iron Maiden is pretty strong, but anti-synergisitc with a lot of countdown reducers. Candelbra is merely decent.

Heavenly Aegis is a card that just feels unfair. It's probably not actually broken in a tuned-tournament setting where the games are over by the time it hits, but gosh darn does it end up seeming unfair a lot of the time when it hits the board. It's slow moving, but offers a lot of inevitability, and that inevitability moves slowly, meaning you feel bad for the 2-4 turns it takes to bludgeon you while you realize your deck has no answers at all. I did lose to one Elana deck that slotted it in as win condition, and then I lost to a deck which set it up with Test of Strength.

10. And that brings me to my final point: in light of the new expansion, I think it's probably prudent to be running a bit more amulet-hate than previously.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by Username17 »

John Magnum wrote:Frank, can I see your math on the odds of drawing a Ginger by turn 9? If you start with three, draw nine over the next nine turns, and draw three more thanks to spells or followers, you see 15 cards out of 40. As far as I can tell, the odds that at least one of those 15 is a Ginger is 1 - (25/40)(24/39)(23/38) = 76.7%, which is not over 88%. But I don't know how mulliganing affects the math. (Though even if I just treat mulliganing as "draw another 3" the odds are 84.4% so.)
You're quite right. I fucked up copying that. The correct number is indeed 77% not 88%. The central point that the deck is too inconsistent without card draw and acceptable with card draw is unchanged. Remember also that if you don't draw Ginger it isn't the end of the world, because you'll be able to hardcast Israfil on her own the same turn if you can't do your Ginger craziness.

The more I look at it, the more I think it's worse to have doubles of cards that are bad in doubles than it is good to have cards that are good. So I think it might actually be correct to run Sahaquiel as a singleton.
Josh wrote:Heavenly Aegis is a card that just feels unfair.
In Take 2 it straight up is unfair. The card is pretty much terrible in constructed environments, but in casual or limited environments it's a hard break. It's every bit as fucked up in T2 as Seraph. And honestly I think Haven might be really powerful in T2 now because they have access to 2 bullshit legendaries for that environment. Not sure.

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Post by DSMatticus »

There really isn't a lot of good amulet hate. There are only like three cards that can banish amulets in the entire game; Petrification, Lightning Blast, and Odin. Two of those are factional, but thankfully all three can double up as creature removal. If you're willing to settle for destroying amulets instead of banishing them then you have more options, but since so many amulets run off last words effects there's a bunch of stuff you won't want to hit with it and that makes running it specifically for the purpose of countering amulets a little dubious.
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Post by John Magnum »

Sounds right about Ginger. It seems like a really interesting deck, and if I had twenty thousand vials or so I would try to fill in the pieces of it I don't have. Having a framework that actually plays those high-value Rune cards that don't fit into Daria would be nice.

---

Last night I did a Take-Two run as Havencraft where the first pair I got was Heavenly Aegis and Tribunal of Good and Evil, and I went 5-0. But I don't think I ever actually played the Aegis, I just played a ton of high-value early cards. The actual MVPs of the deck were the two Tribunals and the Grimnir I drafted.

That's probably anomalous though, I have to figure that the slower pace of Take Two means that a lot of times Heavenly Aegis is just going to be unanswerable.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Mask, Candelebra, Blood Moon, Durandal, Test of Strength, Grave Desecration, Iron Maiden, Man-Eating Mangrove, Support Cannon and Luminous Standard are the NEW amulets you will probably be content to merely destroy. This is on top of old standbys with new synergies such as Elana, Guardian Sun, Royal Banner, Dragonclaw Pendant, etc.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Seeing nothing but rowens and eris in take 2 now.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

So much Ramp Dragon.......I should be running whatever it's weak against, instead of non-neph lich/tyrant and janky cannon. But I think I'm gonna experiment with Frog builds instead.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Still smarting from when I got stomped days ago by the one person I found who put down Frog + Well of Destiny. Which falls over to a Tribunal but only one class can do that.
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Post by Username17 »

Omegonthesane wrote:Still smarting from when I got stomped days ago by the one person I found who put down Frog + Well of Destiny. Which falls over to a Tribunal but only one class can do that.
Frogs are easy to get rid of and even easier to race.

BTW, I loves me a good literal translation.
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I'm not sure what the silver bullet for ramp dragon is. I think it's storm ramp dragon honestly. But it could easily be Aggro Zombie or Sparrow Blood (AKA Storm Blood). Pretty sure it isn't Concede Witch or Sunshine Satan.

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Post by Omegonthesane »

FrankTrollman wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote:Still smarting from when I got stomped days ago by the one person I found who put down Frog + Well of Destiny. Which falls over to a Tribunal but only one class can do that.
Frogs are easy to get rid of and even easier to race.
Easy to race I'll grant you and I haven't seen another frog deck since that one instance (and would also note that Well of Destiny makes them less easy to race).
How do you figure easy to get rid of for people who aren't Havencraft? It's in Ambush all the time, you either need an area attack, a "hits a random follower" effect, or to taunt it into breaking down one of your Wards. I don't even know of one of any of those offhand for anyone not Havencraft.
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Does it spell out what the distinction between Concede Witch and the two 4-star Witch decks is?
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Post by Username17 »

Any deck can run mass or random removal, and almost every deck should. An evolution plus Cyclone Blade should be plenty to clear frogs for Sword, Khawy eats Frogs that get too big, and Lightning Blast don't give no fucks about Ambush. Fuck, even Way of the Outlaw clears frogs for Combo Forest.

The thing about Frog is that before you start buffing him, he's massively below curve. Commander Sword is legitimately asking whether Gemstaff Commander is worth using, because she's "just" a 3/2 for 3 that gives out 3/3 worth of stats if you evolve her and has the trait that combos with all the other pieces of the deck. Front Lines has to trigger twice just to make Hobo Frog have the statline of a replacement level Commander Sword 3-drop. Random Ward creatures are bigger than he is. And if you use him to clear out smaller enemies, you risk the frog being randomly removed by AoE damage like Israfil or Tarnished Grail.

As for the various Rune variants, I think Dimension Witch is D-Shift, Tempo Witch is Daria Rune, and Concede Witch is Dirt Rune. I have no idea how they get Concede out of Earth Rite, but it's the only major Rune Archetype left.

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Post by Koumei »

Sunshine Satan might be the best name ever, and someone needs to just make that their actual legal name.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Captain Leica helps my frogs against Tribunals. I still need to se if Death Sentenence and the Lurching Corpse + Necroassassain combo proc one random kill at a time or two at once against that.

Also, prettymuch any variant of frog wants to run whirlwind blade itself making that answer a question of who draws into it first.

Now frog is a "resiliant aggro" deck, so it's weak against "fast aggro" decks and it sorely needs answers for warded followers

But the general questions are how much frog buff vs how much more typical aggro sword and how much of that frog buff is spells (forge weaponry, mentor's teachings), how much is amulet (banner, well, front lines, rogue's creed) and how much is commander (palace fencer, fencer white general, assault commander, sage commander, wind god)? I'm currently thinking there might just be a viable commandercraft frog hybrid that runs frogs, ninja/kunochi trainees and all the "buff an officer" commanders before topping out at support cannon/monica/albert/luminous mage.
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Post by nockermensch »

Josh_Kablack wrote:But the general questions are how much frog buff vs how much more typical aggro sword and how much of that frog buff is spells (forge weaponry, mentor's teachings), how much is amulet (banner, well, front lines, rogue's creed) and how much is commander (palace fencer, fencer white general, assault commander, sage commander, wind god)? I'm currently thinking there might just be a viable commandercraft frog hybrid that runs frogs, ninja/kunochi trainees and all the "buff an officer" commanders before topping out at support cannon/monica/albert/luminous mage.
The way you deal with ward followers should be something like:

2x Art of the Ninja
3x Cyclone Blade
3x Dance of Death
Add Tsubakis to taste. You can add Onslaughts too, but that may be a bit too much of removal.
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Post by Starmaker »

Koumei wrote:Sunshine Satan might be the best name ever, and someone needs to just make that their actual legal name.
Not quite but close enough: The actual legal name of the owner of T-Shirt Hell is Sunshine Megatron.
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Post by Whipstitch »

HC is ridonkulous in take 2. You have a fuckton of lifegain and removal, a smattering of face damage with Kel for some added pressure and Tarnished Grail, Aegis and Seraph for potential win conditions.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

The way you deal with ward followers should be something like:

2x Art of the Ninja
3x Cyclone Blade
3x Dance of Death
Add Tsubakis to taste. You can add Onslaughts too, but that may be a bit too much of removal.
Art of the Ninja is competing with Demonic Strike. Art is more efficient at removing warded followers. Demonic Strike can do face damage.

Cyclone Blade is good, but I'm not sure if running 3 makes it too likely to have unusable copies in your hand.

The bigger issue is that you're still an aggro deck which means you want a cheap curve so Dance of Death is competing with Albert, Monika, Assault Commander,Wind God, Avant Blader (find another frog), Luminous Mage (free luminous knight evolve for +1 frog damage to face), and Execution (useful for getting buffed frog hits through Iron Maiden. Test of Strength and Durandal) for a pretty harshly limited number of 5-cost slots in your deck.

I'm currently running 3 x Whole-Souled Swing for cheaper removal in the pre-frog turns as well as a mix of the above and am considering swapping in Ruthless Assassin, Blitz Lancer and/or Shrouded Assassin as followers to trade into wards.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by John Magnum »

What does the fattie package for Ginger look like? With a target of eight heavies, it seems like you have a lot of flexibility. Zeus, Bahamut, Lucifer, and Israfil all seem pretty good, without losing value in multiples. A single Archangel Reina obviously goes in the deck. If you have an Erasmus that seems pretty good. The exact ratio must be pretty meta-dependent, with Zeus probably coming in at a high priority for being a resilient Ward creature.
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