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Opinion: Shadowverse Is Hard to Keep up With, but Is Better Because of It
Games like Hearthstone and Shadowverse rarely stand still, with new sets of cards added regularly, giving players new puzzles to solve, new strategies to master and new knowledge to acquire. The upside for engaged players is huge – there is actually no end to how much time you can spend engaging with a game and its community. The downside, of course, is the barrier to entry and learning curve that this presents – not just for new players, but for lapsed players too. And I’m not just talking about having a viable card collection, but understanding the meta – the popular decks, the match-ups and how you’re going to tackle it.
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Coming back to Shadowverse after a few months off has definitely illustrated this for me. I’ve played the game since it launched just over two years ago, so I have a very good grounding in the core mechanics, but Shadowverse’s pace of change is high enough that it was still like diving into unknown waters when I came back, focused and ready to play. Thankfully, I think it’s worth it.
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I have a very good grounding in the core mechanics, but Shadowverse’s pace of change is high enough that it was still like diving into unknown waters when I came back, focused and ready to play. Thankfully, I think it’s worth it.
Shadowverse, you see, is driven by a regular release – and adjustment – cadence. Every three months, on the dot, the team at Cygames releases a new full set of cards, and – starting with the set before last – these are now followed by a “mini-expansion” sometime during that set’s life. The most recent release, for instance, was Brigade of the Sky, which introduced 97 new cards at the end of June. We’re now a month in and the meta is settling down, so when an additional 17 cards (one gold and one legendary for each of the eight classes plus one gold neutral) arrive in mid-August the meta will be in flux once again.
On top of that, Cygames also addresses game balance every single month. Again, like clockwork, the team releases a monthly post detailing the health of the game and announcing any card adjustments that will be made. Occasionally there aren’t any, but generally a handful of changes will be made, and not only does this address problematic decks, but it ensures that the meta is always changing.
And from a broader perspective, Shadowverse takes a cool – but investment heavy – approach to its Rotation format. In this format the last five sets are allowed, along with a relatively small number of Basic cards. Compare this to Hearthstone, which has a large evergreen base set comprised of Basic cards and Classic cards. If you have a good collection of Classic cards in Hearthstone you could take a long break and still have a collection to build upon. This isn’t the case in Shadowverse – the longer the break, the less Rotation legal cards you have. (Of course, there’s always Unlimited format for those older cards!)
Again though, from a gameplay perspective, I like this approach. Every single expansion release sees an old set drop out of Rotation, and the fact that there’s no large evergreen card pool means you’re never going to have fatigue from seeing the same core cards over and over forever. This doesn’t mean Cygames can’t bring cards back, either. Shadowverse also follows Magic: The Gathering’s lead by “reprinting” cards, allowing the design team to bring back iconic old favourites. It’s a smart way to ensure that players don’t have to say goodbye to cards forever.
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For me, Shadowverse is the ideal companion CCG to Hearthstone. Both games are hugely entertaining, but for wildly different reasons.
For me personally, Shadowverse is the ideal companion CCG to Hearthstone. Both games are hugely entertaining, but for wildly different reasons. Hearthstone is very tempo-driven, and Team 5 deliberately keeps card text to a minimum, so you can (for the most part) see at a glance what something does. A lot of the insanity (and complexity) of Hearthstone is driven by randomness – something that the game has embraced and tuned into a fun, integral part of its gameplay. You never really know what’s going to happen in a game of Hearthstone, and dealing with novel situations is part of the appeal.
Shadowverse, on the other hand, doesn’t even put explanatory text on its cards, and there’s a reason – some of them require a LOT. When you’re learning how cards work in Shadowverse you often need to go several clicks deep to get all the information, and then you need to parse how to use all the options available and how the many synergies function.
To give you a basic example, in addition to the usual Fanfare/Last Words abilities on cards (or, in Hearthstone parlance - Battlecry/Deathrattle), one of the core mechanics is the ability to spend a limited number of “Evolution” points each game. Evolving a follower generally gives it a +2/+2 stat boost and if you’ve just played it, it gains Rush, allowing you to trade into an enemy follower. Many of the Evolve effects, however, aren’t simple stat buffs, instead offering powerful alternative tools, such as hard removal, card generation, follower generation, board buffs and so on. On top of that, several can imbue your leader with game-long abilities and do things like restore play points, adding an additional wrinkle to turn-planning.
A very vanilla card until you choose to Evolve it.
There are a host of impactful keywords that add additional flexibility on top of all this. Indeed, one of the most notable changes to Shadowverse over the last couple of years has been the increase in situational flexibility. Many cards have the “Choose” keyword, for instance, allowing you to pick from multiple options, many have “Enhance” effects, which means they can be played for more play points for a greater (or different) effect, and a number of follower cards have “Accelerate” effects, which means that they can be played as a spell for less than their base mana cost and do something completely different.
This card is played in Puppet Portalcraft primarily for its Accelerate ability.
It’s a lot to take in, but all this complexity and flexibility is the source of Shadowverse’s richness as a CCG. It has very little randomness beyond draw RNG, and instead says - the more knowledge you have, the more artfully you can navigate games, and the more you can take advantage of the array of options that are baked into the available cards.
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Complexity and flexibility is the source of Shadowverse’s richness as a CCG.
It makes for an interesting playground that’s a lot less tempo-driven than Hearthstone, and yet is characterised by games where the clock is really ticking. Faster decks need to kill their opponents quickly because combo and control decks have some pretty insane win conditions and late game bombs. There’s also a lot of card draw and card generation in Shadowverse right now, which means fast decks can stay fuelled, while combo decks can reliably draw into their win condition.
An example of the ticking clock of inevitability is (the recently nerfed) Tenko Havencraft, which has a deck full of healing, then plays Tenko’s Shrine, an amulet that turns that healing directly into damage. If you can’t remove those amulets you’re not going to be able to stick a board, so you’d better be dominating the game already or have some burst damage of your own to finish it. The other dominant Havencraft deck – Holy Lion Haven - has a similar inevitability, using Holy Lion Crystal, Temple of the Holy Lion, Peaceweaver and Prism Swing to repeatedly put lions that grow in strength on the board, eventually giving it burst from hand to finish opponents off.
This cost four play points a few weeks ago. It was... strong.
Another popular deck that illustrates this is Chimera Runecraft, a highly synergistic deck geared entirely around the main Runecraft mechanic of spellboosting. This allows Rune players to buff the cards in their hand by playing spells, and means the deck is entirely comprised of spells, followers that can spellboost your hand and pay-off cards. Despondent Chimera and Giant Chimera are the late game bombs, with the latter threatening an OTK out of hand if it gets juiced enough. It’s a pretty uninteractive deck to play against, but it’s beatable because its win condition takes a fair amount of set-up. Decks like Puppet Portalcraft, Aggro and Mid-range Forest and Mid-range Sword are able to build and rebuild boards, so can deal with slower decks, and keep the crazier win conditions in check.
A wall of text... and strong win condition if you can get there.
It’s taken me a couple of weeks to really understand where Shadowverse is at right now, and while that process has been a bit frustrating at times, it’s ultimately been satisfying. It’s cool coming into a completely different meta, and trying to get my head around the complex options and interactions that are now available. It’s a great feeling starting to get comfortable knowing the cards your opponents are likely to play and what their win condition is, then adjusting your game plan accordingly and anticipating their plays.
And now that I’ve found my groove, I can’t wait to see how things change with the next mini-expansion.
Cam Shea is Editor in Chief for IGN's Australian content team and also hosts the Card Corner podcast. He's on Twitter.