In my last article I wrote about how the Uma Museme set wasn't exactly setting the stage alight with its combination of card draw and mediocre beats, but it only took the player base another two weeks and a Grand Prix to change that story.
H.E.A.L.T.H.Y
The top 8 finalists of GP Yokohama were equally split between Dragon and Uma Musume, with the title eventually going to Dragon. What changed? The tuned deck that has emerged is quite aggressive with a lot of deck speed (ability to draw and filter their cards), so overall it provides a very consistent game plan featuring big bodies and a solid top end. It seems to be able to pull together the best of a few different classes, with the card selection and cheap removal of Rune, the finishing power of Dragon/Sword, and the indiscriminate removal of Nightmare.
It's a mid-rangey aggressive deck but with better follower stats than the Nightmare aggro deck and has forced the small-ball style aggro out of the meta, leaving Dragon to flourish without one of its few sketchy matchups (I mean.. if Dragon could be said to have a bad matchup) to worry about.
Anyway...
There's a new set coming out in 6~ weeks, and things can change with the wink of a printer, so I won't get too bogged down by these results and see how things shake out in the coming months. Onto the real topic for today.
The Bachelor: Shadowverse Evolve
It's come to my attention that there's some tension between the frequency of releases and my budget as a student and I can't really in good conscience collect cards from more than one class, so today, live on THIS BLOG, we will decide once and for all who will get the golden rose (I think that's how it works, I should have asked the Mrs who almost exclusively watches these kinds of shows).
First of all, the categories:
Aesthetic, Playstyle, "Marie Kondo Factor", "Student Budget", Variations, Meta
Our contestants:
WILDCARD NIGHTMARE???
Round 1: Aesthetic
1 Point - Elf God it pains me to say this, but playing Magic: The Gathering has really primed me to dislike the colour green for no reason whatsoever. To be honest, this is a harsh way to start proceedings because the Elf deck has some of the best art in the game in my opinion (Rose Queen :0), but simply has a few too many bland non-waifu suitable followers taking up staple slots to be thrilled.
2 Points - Rune While often a bit busy, the Rune aesthetic is what drew me to it in the first place, with Merlin being a standout feature. Cards like Rimewind and Erasmus tread the right side frantic, and blue cards give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
3 Points - Nightmare Stupid sexy vampires remind me so much of Mattervoid from Ophelia (but stupider and sexier) and I love the colour palette.
Round 2: Playstyle
1 Point - Nightmare Unfortunately from what I've seen you're either playing mindless spammy aggro, or you're dropping big impactful demons turn after turn. I like solving sequence puzzles too much to enjoy this kind of gameplay.
2 Points - Rune While the Golem side of things bores me to tears, the classic control + combo finish gameplay offered by the Dimension Shift variant is super comfy and enjoyable to pilot.
3 Points - Elf I am absolutely ready to be starving at the end of each event, with all the decision trees that can be found in this forest, as well as the thrill of dumping 7 mana into a game ending burn spell.
Round 3: Student Budget
1 Point - Nightmare The downside of being the wildcard entrant in a competition designed to save me money is that I have none of these cards, and the core isn't one of the cheaper ones despite not being particularly meta relevant right now.
2 Points - Rune Annoyingly, while I have almost all of the cards, there's a pretty expensive Rune follower at the core of the Uma Musume deck that is currently priced higher than I've ever paid for a Shadowverse Evolve card, and that's kind of annoying.
3 Points - Elf Elf cards have always been the cheapest from what I've been interested in, I think because generally speaking Elf is fairly unpopular where I am. It seems while people respect the Elf deck as being decent, no one has the stomach to play it.
Half-time Score update
Elf - 7
Rune - 6
Nightmare - 5
~
Round 4: Variations
1 Point - Elf It's not that the Elf deck can't be built in different ways, in fact I think there are a lot of viable flex cards already at Elf's disposal. It's just that I think that a lot of possible builds have the same core of cards right now, which could become tedious if new sets don't provide more build-arounds.
2 Points - Nightmare The flipside to Nightmare's downside of being either spammy or considered, as mentioned in Round 2, is that you really do have two fairly different decks to pilot.
3 Points - Rune While it's probably the reason Rune is suffering in the meta right now, this class almost feels like it is two classes in one. The Golem side, based around Earth Rite magic, and the Spellchain deck looking to go long and land big powered up abilities after getting X number of spells into the graveyard.
Round 5: Meta
When I say Meta, I don't mean the current or recent meta, but more like how well suited I think the class's design space fits the overall structure of the game. Shadowverse Evolve is ported from an Application game where the rules are quite different, and they've tried to port the playstyle of each class to paper. Some classes required more rejigging than others.
1 Point - Rune I'm sure it could be done, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think the current concept of Spellchain is as suited to this game as much it is trying to pay homage to Spellboost in Shadowverse. A strategy that relies on you to make it to the end-game for some at-times meagre rewards is not a winning strategy in any aggressive meta.
2 Points - Nightmare This is a hard one to predict, because the class mechanics (Necrocharge and Crimson) are barely relevant even in the class's strongest decks, but I think we've been shown that they're willing to print some plainly strong effects on Nightmare cards and I doubt they'll stop.
3 Points - Elf Low-cost value engines, catch-all removal pinned to bodies, and direct damage are all universally powerful traits that I think will one day see Elf rise a little higher in their standings than they are now.
Round 6: Marie Kondo Factor
1 Point - Nightmare Looking at the Nightmare cards certainly sparks joy, but I'm old enough to know that it's the same feeling I get looking at KFC or Warhammer 40,000 models. It never gets better than the moment right before you've committed.
2 Points - Rune Merlin is still my favourite card in Shadowverse Evolve. She's the mage Snapcaster Mage could have been if he hadn't spent all of his University days playing Quidditch. She's blue, she searches a spell, and even lets you play one in the graveyard for free when she evolves. Unfortunately with all this extra baggage, she isn't the graceful 2 mana that Snapcaster Mage is, and she doesn't have flash. Maybe I don't really love Merlin, maybe I just love Snapcaster Mage. These thoughts keep me up at night in a way Marie Kondo wouldn't approve of.
3 Points - Elf Maybe I'm just in love with winning, and the Elf deck gave me my only event wins. Maybe my lizard brain likes navigating intricate turns to both hit Combo_X AND not accidentally have no space to play Tia. Maybe Rose Queen gives me everything I thought I wanted from Merlin but I was just too blind to see it. Either way, even at 0-3, I still enjoy playing the Elf deck.
Results
Nightmare - 10
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Rune - 12
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Elf - 14
can't believe it took 650 words to decide to give roses to the Rose Queen
wts: Rune cards
By the way, in case you didn't notice, there's a way to register your email to receive mail when I make a post on the sidebar of the main page. I post around once a week, unsubscribe any time. Cheers!
The Notebook!
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