Ginsetsu Shadowcraft

A guide by DB Tempest.

Shadowcraft was a very strong deck at the start of Ultimate Colosseum but has fallen out of favor somewhat. Is it possible to make ginsetsu work with some of the new card?

This is not my list I took it from a Jap shadow main (I play 2 Shinobu instead of Sora).

General Playstyles: 

• Accel mechs early, try to reanimate shovel/shuten with Friends Forever
• Classic go 2^nd into t4 shuten evo t5 ceres t6 vow t7 ginsetsu
• Stall the game with fleeting joy/yuki

Things to take note of while playing against it:

• This deck gains shadows REALLY FAST, keep track of their cards played/followers destroyed (see what they’ll reanimate) if you can and always be ready for early legendary skeletons/puddings because theyre very easy to proc now
• Friends forever can heal 4, in case you guys didn’t know
• HE WHO ONCE ROCKS REANIMATES 8. If they played fleeting joy for 9, please don’t kill mechawing first. If you kill slash first he’ll usually reanimate ceres

Matchups (from Shadow’s perspective i.e. favoured means favoured for shadow):

• Machina Blood – Slightly favoured 55/45
  • I know you guys will shit on me but if they have their bane followers/the perfect friends forever this deck can easily deal with nerea and they’ll usually try to stall with fleeting joy/technolord/heals/wards
  • Try to otk with mono/spam mechs to get to 10 and neun will destroy this deck
• NTR Dragon – Slightly unfavoured 45/55 (without prison and/or rola)/ Unfavoured 40/60 (with prison or rola)
  • Without cards like inori/kaya/ian, good shadow players might be able to take advantage of dragon’s weak early game with high tempo plays like gin accel on 5 
  • If you ramp fast into al machinus and create a huge board, shadow usually can’t clear it unless they have the bane followers/yuki to lock the board
  • If you ever get valdain active early like t4/5 the game should be over
• Turbo Zeus/Discard Dragon – Unfavoured 40/60
  • I haven’t played this matchup at all but I’m guessing that it should be very difficult for shadow to win if you ramp really fast and have plesio since you can heal up easily while clearing their board (genesis will make shadow cry)
• Artifact – 50/50
  • Assuming you know how to pilot this deck, you should be able to edge it out especially with the right draws (duplicator into drain/modesty/vertex)
  • Shadow’s late game is still strong if the game drags out since they have a lot of healing and higher burst damage too
  • Belphomet will likely to destroy shadow if you get good rolls
• Spellboost – Slightly favoured 55/45
  • Same thing as last expac, except that there’s more bane and spellboost has less burst potential now (unless you play gabriel) and shadow can heal up easily too
  • If you can drop early flame destroyers behind wards or t6 kuon + flame destroyer you should win easily
• NTR Rune – Unfavoured 40/60
  • Assuming you get t7 riley, the game should be really since shadow has one less ward now without grudge knight (or maybe some play it idk)
• PTP Shadow – Slightly Favoured 55/45
  • Not so much to say about the matchup but more of ptp’s weakness – you have less ways to draw now/proc lara now so yea
  • You still win if you can proc ptp on6 tho but that should win almost any deck anyways
• Elana Haven – Slightly Unfavoured 45/55
  • If you can get limonia active early into t6 machinus you should be pretty good to go unless shadow has shuten active with yukis/sora/skele/shovel
  • If you can produce a tall boards with at least 2 wards shadow shouldn’t be able to clear unless it’s t8 onwards when they have pudding/technolord active usually
  • Try not to let them play vow as that’s the only way they can stall out for the late game where they’ll likely outgrind you
  • Please don’t even try to commit the aegis unless you can force them to pudding something else
• NTR Shadow 60/40
  • Pretty tough to beat since you have almost no heals if they pressure you hard and gin is still a problem unless you have your own crazy lubelle turn with at least 2 0 cost trees
  • If you’re playing al machinus/manage to play t6/7 thot you might have a shot then
• Evo Sword 60/40
  • Not much has changed since shadow should still be favoured unless you aggro them fast but if you can keep pressuring with tall boards/threaten the burst from wildcat it could be possible to win
• Control Forest 45/55
  • You have to be more cautious with your evo points now but you should still be able to outheal and outgrind shadow but the difference is that they have fleeting joy/more wards now so otk becomes harder