Here’s a picture of the best girl doing something she loves. Source: pixiv / 冬風まり(fuu)
Hi all, I’m Tempest and I would like to share a snippet of my experiences playing Shadowverse in the past year. For the majority of people that don’t know me, just click the Meet The Team page. Read my introduction that the amazing Praetorian wrote for us.
Okay I’m guessing you guys didn’t click it anyways. So for the past two years, I have been competing in the SEAO region, where the highlight of my career so far was winning SVO April Cup 2020 with my beloved Artifact Portal and two braindead decks. Sadly, I couldn’t translate the success over to the following months, and I fell short of qualifying for Contenders. When I look back at the past year, I regret not putting enough effort into playing Levin Sword in Ultimate Colosseum or mastering my decks for Fortune’s Hand (or believing in Burial Rite Shadow). I can tell myself that I was busy with internship and school work but I know it’s just an excuse when I still have time to play other games at night.
Me good player. Me play Al Machinus and go brrr. Source: SVO Esports Youtube
So sure enough, I began to play Shadowverse less, as I started playing some games like Atelier Ryza, Persona 4 Golden and Apex Legends. I also spent too much time reading Shoujo mangas, watching trashy animes when I could’ve spent it all playing Shadowverse, a game that I thought I really loved. Even after the SVO season ended for me this year, I was still looking forward to playing the latest expansion after seeing Maiser revealed. I swear I’m straight as hell, but he really looks a lot like Chuya from Bungo Stray Dogs and I really love Chuya.
I swear it’s totally not because of the top hat. Source: Shadowverse (left), pixiv / 祐貴 (right)
Just like every expansion, I tried my own brews before playing the meta decks after Week 1. I tried Milteo OTK, Dirt Rune with Maiser, Buff Maiser Rune but they were all just not strong enough. Even though I knew that my decks were at best memes, I was kind of frustrated at the meta in the first week – Anvelt was stupidly oppressive with the Sarissa highroll and Control Heal Haven was so annoying to play against with all the strong control tools. To be honest, I think I was just fed up and tired of the dumb cards that have been released this year – which started with everyone’s favourite Al Machinus. I reached the point that I was just so tired of playing the game that I finally uninstalled it just as the chest event began.
So while hoping for some balance changes, I started to play other games more, like Farm Grand/Order, having fun in Priconne and Dragalia Lost (ironically still succumbing to being KMR’s slave). I also spent more time catching up with friends, catching up on old anime like Haikyu! and watching the League of Legends World Championships. These activities were really helpful for me since I used to spend too much time checking Twitter constantly for JCG results, new deck lists, meta changes and whatnot. I was able to finally spend less time on Shadowverse for a while but at the end of the day, it felt wrong to not play the game. Just like during Verdant Conflict last year, I barely played the game since it was during the off-season but I just felt guilty as a “competitive” player if I were to take a break from the game for too long.
Just wanted to share my new Priconne waifu. Halloween Tsumugi is just so cute. Source: Princess Connect! Re:Dive
Fast forward to three days ago (at the time of this writing anyways) and I was watching the West Contenders Cup with the team, where there were some disgusting highrolls that reminded me why I hated this game sometimes, but also some amazing plays that also reminded me why I enjoy playing this game so much (Dolan’s Portal clutch victory against Hishiro’s Sword was actually insane with his anime protagonist powers).
So I installed the game again today, painfully cleared my leftover daily missions where I had to play the really stupid format a.k.a Unlimited in order to clear Rune AND Blood dailies. I loaded up a new version of the Shadow deck that popped up today and in the span of 5 games, I either lost to some memer playing Sword with Decisive Maneuver or Amulet Haven with the god curve, while drawing ALL my Gremorys. But unlike a few weeks ago, I realised I wasn’t as mad or upset anymore. I guess taking a break from the game helped to untilt me since I wasn’t pressuring myself to climb to GM as fast as I can or master Deck X’s matchups. I told myself that if I was tilting too much, I could just stop playing and go back to Tsumugi waiting for me in Priconne or farming with Summer Marie. Sure enough, it’s the off-season right now so I’m pretty much stress-free but at least I’m beginning to enjoy playing Shadowverse again, even with degenerate decks waiting. I mean, could Ward Haven or Nahato nee-san be any worse than not getting any 5* from 50 rolls in Genshin Impact?
Imagine caring about the meta in a game when you can just only care about waifu. Source: Fate/Grand Order
What I’m trying to say at the end of the day is that if you’re like me and you’re getting tired of playing against Turn 1 Anvelt or Za Warudo in every deck, here’s my piece of advice for you:
Stop playing the game for a while, go do other things, discover new waifus and come back with your new found waifu power.
Waifu will give you the strength to overcome the despair of drawing 3 Za Warudos.
Waifu will give you the power to draw Anvelt on Turn 1.
Waifu will give you the power to go first in every game.
If you haven’t already, follow me on my Twitter (@tempest_sv) where I will always share amazing fanart of my waifus, Team Dawnbreakers’ Twitter (@DawnbreakersSV) for our team updates and join our Discord channel where you can share your salt/crazy highrolls or just your waifus.
Dawnbreakers Esports 