by DB Honeyhill
Shadowverse was first released on June 17 2016. By this moment, the game has already had their 5th Anniversary! YAY! *insert cheerful emote here*. Shadowverse has also received some attentions this year because of the collaboration event “Buddy System All Stars”. With these events going, we generally got an idea on how newbie friendly Shadowverse is. So, if you want to make your buddy quit being an alcoholic or quite smoking and instead get addicted to this game, here are the TOP TEN REASONS WHY SHADOWVERSE IS THE BEST GAME!
- Waifu Online Trading Card Game
If your friends like anime, just tell them this game is basically Hearthstone with anime graphics and Japanese voices.
Not convinced yet? Let me take you to a page where DB Karakiri wrote an article about ‘Who voices the most cards in Shadowverse?’ https://dawnbreakers.team/2021/07/16/who-voices-the-most-cards-in-shadowverse/
One of the major factors that rises this game’s popularity is the art style. Calling them extraordinary might not be an exaggeration. I now present some of the best cards in the game.
Some of the cards are even fully animated like this one here
- Easy to understand mechanics and tutorial
When first starting out the game, there are some terms that people need to be aware of. But you don’t need to master them all at once, you can learn as you progress. For example, when you play Forestcraft for the very first time in solo – story missions, there would be some explanation like this:
The game even tells you to drag and drop the card like what is seen below
With a detailed tutorial like this, people can understand the mechanics step by step and will not get overwhelmed. In needs of more details? Here is an article DB Momojelly has written for us to understand more about the in-game mechanics : https://dawnbreakers.team/2021/08/08/the-keyword-dictionary/
- Rewarding Missions and F2P Friendly
The missions are quite straightforward and is rewarding. Especially for people who just started playing it. There are some really rewarding missions like the ones listed below
- Elite Battle. Each elite battle will give 100 rupies. With a total of 24 missions, it is 2400 Rupies in total!
- Private Missions (Without Quitting). Play with anyone in a private match. Each match would give 100 rupies. The limit is 20 matches, in the end it is a whooping 2000 Rupies!
- Play Story. Each character has their own story. The story also gives decent rewards. It varies from rupies until sleeves! Who would not want this handsome looking guy as a sleeve?
Want to know how to raise the efficiency especially as a newcomer? Here is a F2P detailed guidelines written by DB Suya: https://dawnbreakers.team/2021/08/15/free-to-play-guide/
- Casual Or Competitive?
Looking for a casual gameplay and want to have a chat in a discord community? Join the discord! Finding private match to clear missions and asking for tips would be helpful here! https://discord.gg/CMzzbuf5
Looking for a competitive scene where you wish to be the very best? Shadowverse had a huge stage called World Grand Prix that is hold once every year! (Except in 2020 because of COVID-19). Find more informations here : http://svo.gg/
Want to compete with other people but still be a casual player? You can join Shadowverse Weekend! What is it? Basically people playing decks they ‘like’ in a competitive format so people could try being competitive while still playing the game for fun!
There are some events like in-game grand prix that happens once in a while.
There is also a treasure chest hunting event that could drop sleeves, emblems, or other good stuff like rupies or even lots of packs!
- Cool Storyline
To be honest, I really enjoy shadowverse story. The story was written really well. The characters design and voice acting’s are really appealing. Lots of plot twist both sad or happy. Currently there are 13 seasons of stories and each seasons usually have multiple class to play. You can totally take your time here and enjoy it!
The best part about the story is you can participate using decks you create on your own. It feels like you will be the main protagonist here and beat all of the evil guys. And with diverse Classes, you can see each other perspective and draw the line from each story. In the end, everything makes sense. Here are the class choices for reference.
And here is the story world map.
- Very Balanced
Balancing in trading card games is sometimes hard. But not with Shadowverse. Certain classes usually get super strong in the different rotation seasons while some other classes are basically totally unplayable.
They made sure that, if a class is super strong, the next expansion they would print really terrible cards for the related class when the strong cards got rotated. On the other side, the unplayable classes get really broken cards. To make it fair, they also printed a broken neutral card. It is balanced if every single class has access to the same broken card.
Shadowverse matchmaking is usually based on the class you played as well. For example, when you play as last word shadow, you are likely to meet all the amulet haven players. When you switch and play amulet haven, you will meet resonance portal. You can predict your next opponent and bring a card to counter it.
If playing in rotation feels totally unbearable, it might be good to let off some steam in unlimited. Because every single deck could set up lethal by turn 6 or even faster.
- Diverse Meta and Strategic Deckbuilding
There are 8 classes. Each class has access to cards related to their own class and neutral cards. In rotation, you have access to 5 expansions and each expansion is replaced after existing for 15 months. The replaced expansion is still accessible in Unlimited format.
Currently, there are 21 expansions accessible in unlimited. Oh, and each expansion has 3 legendaries, 3 golds, 4 silvers, and 2 bronze cards for each class (at least the new ones do). With an additional 2 legendaries, 3 golds, 2 silvers, and 3 bronze cards for the neutral cards. So, each expansion has 106 cards. Which means, in rotation you have access to 110 cards for each class. Each deck contains 40 cards and a maximum of 3 of the same card. Imagine the possibilities of creating decks like this?
With these huge selections, now we proceed on how to make a deck. Especially, selecting the win condition!
- Deal damage straight to your opponent face each turn?
- Is it through OTK even when your opponent had 35 HP?
- Or reducing your opponents maximum HP until the maximum is not even a positive number?
Don’t forget the ping as well
It is all your choice! Curious about the decks? Here are the list taken from this link :
| Deck Archetype | Count | Player % | |
| 1 | Last Words Shadow | 173 | 67.58 |
| 2 | Bayleon Sword | 106 | 41.41 |
| 3 | Accelerate Forest | 53 | 20.7 |
| 4 | Mysteria Rune | 43 | 16.8 |
| 5 | Sanctuary Haven | 38 | 14.84 |
| 6 | Spellboost Rune | 25 | 9.77 |
| 7 | Machina Portal | 20 | 7.81 |
| 8 | Midrange Sword | 9 | 3.52 |
| 9 | Natura Dragon | 7 | 2.73 |
| 10 | Eris Haven | 7 | 2.73 |
| 11 | Combo Forest | 5 | 1.95 |
| 12 | Amulet Haven | 5 | 1.95 |
| 13 | Evolution Dragon | 5 | 1.95 |
| 14 | Resonance Portal | 4 | 1.56 |
| 15 | Face Dragon | 2 | 0.78 |
| 16 | Evolution Rune | 2 | 0.78 |
| 17 | Machina Shadow | 2 | 0.78 |
| 18 | Volteo Blood | 1 | 0.39 |
| 19 | Ward Haven | 1 | 0.39 |
| 20 | Buff Dragon | 1 | 0.39 |
| 21 | Sekka Forest | 1 | 0.39 |
| 22 | Wrath Blood | 1 | 0.39 |
| 23 | Mono Blood | 1 | 0.39 |
Turns out Last Word Shadow is really popular and is chosen by 173 out of 256 players. And it is quite sad for bloodcraft since this class got picked only 3 times out of 256 players.
By the way, shout outs to Zhiff because he has been providing us with good resources for information about the Meta and he informs us about what is going on each expansion.
- Full of Interaction
Trading card game means you have interactions such as trading. Whether it is when you trade followers, play spells or amulets to destroy followers, or dealing damage straight to the face. There are lots of interactions involved in this game! Especially when you are a Haven main and play Amulet Haven or Sanctuary Haven. The best card with lots of interaction is of course this one:
Shadowverse doesn’t just have sleeves and emblems as skins, but also leaders! The game tends to have collaborations with other famous brands like Princess Connect, Granblue Fantasy, Manaria Friends, Champions Battle, World Flipper, Uma Musume, you mention it! Even better, each leader has their own reactions such as greetings, thanking your opponent, thinking, shocked, even when they got damaged. Usually here is what happening each of the match:
- We start the match by greeting to each other
- After that, if need some time to think, use ‘thinking emote’
- After taking too long to think, use ‘apology’ then ‘thank’
- If they suddenly make a huge board or summon a strong follower, use ‘shocked’.
- Usually your opponent would do ‘taunt’ to make the battle more interesting.
Also, this is one of my favorite voices from shadowverse
- The developers listen to your input!
Developers always try to deliver the best to us. When people were complaining about how strong ladica and jatelant were, the developers immediately took action and nerfed them. When the natura and machina mechanics were about to get rotated, they brought them back because they knew we love the natura and machina mechanics.
Also, each year there is a so called anniversary leaders voting! Basically, each player casts their vote on which card they want to make into a leader skin. In the end, each class would get the most voted cards as a new leader. The results of this year’s anniversary can be found below:
https://shadowverse.com/anniv/5th/results?lang=en
Based on previous experience, the 1st voted leader would get created right away! They won’t bother to waste their time to create a leader out of a 2nd or even 3rd place leader first. Don’t worry!
There is also an event where players could ask things like the idea behind the cards, the new mechanics, or Lorena’s real gender.
- Shadobasu Sugeeee Tanoshi!
Last but not least. The catchphrase that was used in the shadowverse anime was ‘SHADOBASU SUGEEEEE TANOSHI’. I never realized until the main character, Hiro Ryūgasaki, pointed it out for me. Starting at that moment, I become more deeply in love in shadowverse! I was really glad when they printed some of the basic cards of the shadowverse anime like these:
And here is an even better news. Next expansion, we would get a shadowverse anime collaboration as an expansion! Which means, now we can totally become the main protagonist and top-deck every single card we need at the very exact moment. SHADOBASU, SUGEEEEE TANOSHI!!
Anyway, thanks for staying with and reading this article. By the way, some of the points stated should not be taken seriously. At the end of the day, despite some of the jokes, shadowverse had a special place in my journey and I still feel shadowverse is one of the best games I ever played. I hope this article would be useful and hopefully make your day! Let me finish this article with one of my speedrun drawings
Dawnbreakers Esports 