Taking the Horses to Isengard!

 This week is the first week that the new Uma Masume collaboration set is legal, but instead of buying all the hype around the new horse-trainer anime cards I took my trusty elves to Cardlab to show them that when it comes to horse riding, elves do it best.

There really is an anime for everything

The new set is unique in a few different ways. You can legally construct a deck using cards across all the different factions as long as they're all from this Uma Masume set. Or, as normal, you can pick a faction and include the Uma Masume cards from that faction with your regular Shadowverse Evolve cards. It also brings a new version of evolve called Racing, where you jam a carrot card under them (into them? Still unclear) and they "begin racing", which gives Rush and triggers various effects.

I largely ignored the new set because I didn't really see anything worth including for my Elves, and with no interest in building the Uma deck it was a little bit tl;dr for me. Onto the games!

5th Oct - Locals - Cardlab 7人 ~ Elf Control

Decklist: https://shadowcard.io/deck/and-my-bow-updated-grand-dreams-blog-131

Round 1: Bishop w/ Horses

As the Elf player, I don't mind playing against Bishop as my threat timings are difficult for the standard control variant to handle. Ancient Elf is a massive beater from turn 2, and their answer doesn't come online until around turn 4. Getting in a couple of hits early in the game means that the late game unstoppable damage from Rose Queen or Silver Bolt is usually lethal, and while Bishop is a control deck there isn't any way to stop direct burst damage which is Elf's modus operandi.

Silver Bolt

[Quick] Choose an enemy leader or enemy follower. Draw a card. Deal X damage to it. X equals the number of cards in your hand.

From around turn 3 I found out that my opponent was dabbling in the bovine arts, as instead of parading out the suite of removal spells that I was accustomed to he began deploying hasty horse-women that had some amulet synergy to go with the regular bishop amulets that are used as removal or card draw. 

I was caught off guard a little early when he opted to shoot me in the face for 3 while I was at a healthy 16 rather than take back control of the board, because it signalled to me that there was a LOT more burn damage coming, or at the very least that this was an aggressively bent deck.  

Majiro McQueen

Feed (1): This follower begins Racing. 

Evolve (1): Evolve this follower. 

[Ward]

Fanfare: [Put an amulet to graveyard]: Choose an enemy leader or follower, deal 3 damage to it.

The problem for my opponent is that the pressure they were applying was not really enough, and I was trading damage with them while controlling the board, and curved quite comfortably into a Rose Queen to finish the job. Textbook.

Rose Queen

Fanfare: Choose any number of followers with the <Fairy> trait in your EX Area. Transform them into Thorn Bursts. 

Activate: [Act this card]: Recover X play points. X equals the number of Thorn Bursts in your EX Area. [Thorn Bursts are 2pp Forest <Plantfolk> spells with "Choose an enemy leader or enemy follower. Deal 3 damage to it. Draw a card."]

I didn't think much of the inclusion of the Horse cards here as it seemed to pull the deck in too many directions, but instead of telling my opponent his deck is shit I instead tactfully asked if he thought the new horse stuff is strong. He told me that he'd had some good times with this list, but that it's built around an engine that spams out Holy Tigers (see below) by abusing the horsey ability to destroy and recur amulets, and didn't see it in our game.

Holy Sentinel

Once during each of your turns, when another allied amulet leaves play, summon a Holyflame Tiger. Give it [Ward].

Holyflame Tiger

[Rush]

Nico later told me that he lost to my opponent playing this deck and that when it's properly set up it's really hard to overcome, and my opponent went on to finish the event 2-1. Unfortunately I think in a game as fast as Shadowverse you probably won't have the time to set it up consistently, but it's a cool idea and the kind of durdly thing I'm usually into as well.

1-0

Round 2: Nico w/ Bishop Control (horseless)

I know I said I liked the Bishop matchup, but Nico has been putting in reps lately and I think the list is solid, so I refocused and set my Millennium Eye to "try-hard". I kept my first hand because it contained Ancient Elf, a Mei to bounce albeit with no value, and a Lily for Kaguya. Normally in grindy games you're looking for a way to get extra value from the Ancient Elf bounces, but against bishop control I think the early damage is worth the tempo and potential value loss.

Ancient Elf

Evolve (1): Evolve this follower. 

[Ward] 

Fanfare: [Return another card in play to the hand]: Get +1/+1.

As I won the dice roll and went first, Ancient Elf evolved and got to a 5/5 before managing two massive hits to take Nico to 10. I already had a Rose Queen and Silver Bolt in hand, and with Bishop typically unable to raise a lot of early pressure I felt reasonably comfortable that from here on out I could just keep a full hand and apply light pressure before deploying a lot of burn.

Things got a little dicey in the mid game as Nico found a lot of ways to gain life, pushing my Rose Queen further and further out of range, and I took some extra hits along the way that I think I could have avoided if I'd sequenced some Mei plays better in the early game. Lily wasn't used on a Kaguya but as always was incredibly valuable, this time in bottom decking a Bellringer Angel to avoid the Last Words, and then attacking a 2/2 to clear the way for some extra damage.

Bellringer Angel

Evolve (2): Evolve this follower. 

[Ward] 

Last Words: Draw a card.

We each got to around 12 life after I'd deployed a Rose Queen, but I had been sculpting for a massive burn turn and had to give up control of the board to do so, which looked quite scary but I trusted my math. Taking my 9th turn starting with a full hand of cards, I drew to 8, used a Thorn Burst in my EX area to deal 3 damage and draw a card, and then threw a Silver Bolt for 9 damage. 12 exactsies.

2-0

Round 3: Uma Musume

ruh roh. 

time to read 50 new cards

It's obviously not ideal to be playing in the finals against an entirely new set that you've spent less time reading than the back of a Nutri-Grain box. It's also a little bit scary to find out that the mono-horse deck is in the finals, as I'd written it off at a glance. That being said, I know the pilot is a strong player so I'm hoping it's one of those cases of a good player overperforming.

Kellog's if you're reading this, I'm happy to write my own feature

I opened the stone cold nuts when it comes to Elf, in that I had both Ancient Elf and the 1-drop that draws a card when it leaves the table, which means your Ancient Elf basically becomes a 5/5 that draws two cards. I made a mistake in not evolving my Tia which pushes my 4/4 Eve into a 5/5, but that was only apparent when I found out that the Uma removal caps out at 4 damage.

Crystalia Eve

Crystalia Tia (Evolved)

Evolve: Choose an allied Crystalia Eve. Give it +1/+1 and [Rush].

The Uma deck centers around a Follower called Daiwa Scarlet, which searches for, reduces the cost of your Uma spells, and then starts handing out [Storm] like a horse version of Oprah Winfrey. I think the idea is that you use this in tandem with Agnes, who I wrote about earlier, pinging down the board along the way. 

Daiwa Scarlet

Feed (1): This follower begins Racing. 

As long as this card is in the field, when you would play Uma Musume spell for the first time this turn, reduce that spell cost by 1.

When you play a spell, if its the third spell played this turn, choose an allied Uma Musume follower. Give it and this follower [Storm].

Fanfare: Search for an Uma Musume spell from your deck, put it into your hand.

Unfortunately for my opponent, the Elf deck is pretty good at dealing damage to unacted Followers which is a little bit rare, so I was able to manage the board quite effectively and get in some hits along the way. Towards the end of the game, I was at a healthy 20 life and my opponent was around 13 or 14. I had two Silver Bolts in a full hand, and I wondered if the Uma deck has any way to gain life.

Silver Bolt

[Quick] Choose an enemy leader or enemy follower. Draw a card. Deal X damage to it. X equals the number of cards in your hand.

I decide that the answer is "probably not", and the worst case scenario is I fall a little behind on the board but with a very healthy life total, so I put my best p-p-poker face on and pass the turn without spending any of my 7PP available. This is basically completely unheard of in this game, so I have to wonder if there was any point in hiding my intentions at all, but it was amusing to blast him for 7 at the end of his turn and then immediately end the game by blasting him for 8 at the beginning of mine.

3-0

Post Event Thoughts

Back to back 3-0's with this list feels pretty good, even if this week has the asterisk of playing against a field of people testing the new set. The Uma deck seems fun to play, it draws a lot of cards and churns through the deck but I suspect the juice isn't worth the squeeze. For all the drawing and storming there isn't quite an end product like the other factions already have access to, but I do think there will be a few cards that find their homes in the regular faction lists.

That being said, you can only beat the decks you come up against, and my Horsey opponents each went 2-1 having only lost to me. My list feels strong, though this time I'm thinking about making one or two changes. 

Execution is obviously very powerful when you need to remove an Amulet or something at Quick speed, but at one copy and no way to search it I'm not sure how often I'm going to have it when I need it. When I DON'T need it, the deck has better options to removal big threats in the form of Lily.

Execution

[Quick] Choose an enemy card in play. Destroy it.

The other thing I'm thinking about is the Evolve deck. I think I'm being a little greedy in that I don't have room for the Evolve cards for the third Ancient Elf, second Tia and third Archer. It nearly bit me today, but I've been getting away with it so far. I could cut the third Lily for maybe the second Tia which is the one that I feel I'm missing the most often, but I'm not sure. I'll keep an eye on it, and on new releases to replace an evolve Follower to lighten the load.

Most importantly, I'm really enjoying playing the Elf deck in a way that I'm not quite feeling at the moment with Rune, so for the time being I think I'm going to stick with it when it comes to srs bsns events, and see what the new set brings for Rune.

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