All current meta decks once started as an idea by a fellow player, who used his knowledge of deck crafting and the meta at the time to create an optimal decklist. Deckcrafting itself is an important aspect of CCGs. È essenziale per i giocatori di alto livello modificare i propri mazzi standard in base ai mazzi più giocati, in modo da avere maggiori possibilità di vincere e, quindi, maggiori possibilità di scalare la classifica.
Over time, the decklist may have changed because of new cards or changes in the meta. Understanding these changes, and especially why these changes are made, is an important skill to have in CCGs.
Comprendere gli Archetipi di Mazzo
The word archetype in Shadowverse means a set of guidelines and staple cards for a certain deck. In Shadowverse, there are 4 main archetypes, consisting of Aggro, Midrange, Combo and Control. It is very important for deck to follow one of the three archetypes, and also contain cards that match with the archetypes' philosophy. Choosing an archetype is the first step of deck construction, and will determine the kind of cards and the win condition you will include in your deck.
Aggro
- Aggro decks are decks that have a lot of cheap (1-4 cost) followers and a few removal tools, mostly in the form of direct damaging spells or followers who have the ability to deal damage with Fanfares or Last Words.
- The goal of these decks is gaining board dominance during the first few turns, and rushing the enemy leader down before he can do anything to regain board control.
- However, if the enemy leader can regain board control, by using an AoE board clear like Themis Decree, Aggro decks usually have a hard time restabilizing.
- Aggro decks are a very populair choice for budget players, since they don't require a lot of Legendaries (because Legendaries usually are high-cost Control or Combo cards).
Midrange
- Midrange Decks are decks that have cards with a wide variety of costs (most of the time 7 or lower cost). Usually they have a balanced variety of spells and followers, usually including some form of removal or direct damage.
- Midrange Decks are considered to be the middle ground between Aggro and Control.
- Midrange decks are really Curve-focused, meaning that they usually play as much on Curve as possible. This is in contrast with Control Decks who usually hold on to cheap powerful removal and even skip turns all together.
- The goal of these decks is to gain board presence, win the board by using follower trading or removal to remove the enemy board and then winning the game by having followers on the board while the enemy doesn't.
- These decks are usually weaker in the early game than pure Aggro Decks, and are weaker in the lategame than Control Decks. However, this also means that Midrange decks are better in the lategame than Aggro Decks and stronger in the early game than Control Decks.
- This means that you need to identify the archetype you're playing against and play accordingly.
Control
- Control decks are decks that have a lot of high cost (5+ cost) followers and usually a lot of removal.
- The goal of these decks can vary, but most Control decks have some kind of win condition they are working towards. These win conditions are usually very strong high-cost followers.
- Basically Control decks win when the opponent can't deal with the huge and powerful followers that Control decks dish out.
- The drawback of these decks is that they have a very weak early game, meaning that they can be overrun before they can gain any presence on the board. Especially Aggro decks are very effective at countering Control decks.
- Control decks usually require a several Legendaries and Gold cards, making them a bad choice for budget players.
Combo
- Combo decks are decks that, similar to Control decks, contain a lot of removal. The difference between Control and Combo is that Combo decks usually use a certain combination of cards to kill the opponent in a single turn.
- In order to do this, they need a lot card draw to get the combo peices, as well as a lot of PP to use said combo pieces in a single turn.
- In order to survive until you can play these pieces and have enough PP to play them, Combo decks utilize a lot of removal and stalling tools. Combo decks usually run a combination of hard removal, soft removal and Ward followers to buy themselves as much time as possible.
- Then, when their combo is ready, Combo decks can usually OTK the opponent without having any followers on board.
These four main archetypes all have a lot of subarchetypes, which are different per class. For example, Forestcraft has the (Combo) OTK Roach archetype and Havencraft has the (Combo) Seraph archetype. After you've determined your main archetype, you need to create a decklist with the philosophy of that archetype or a variation of one of the many sub archetypes. These subarchetypes usually consist of a core package (the win condition) and more replacable cards that help you achieve this win condition.
Per esempio, un mazzo Dimension Shift Runecraft (per la classe degli Esoterici) deve avere molti strumenti di rimozione, preferibilmente rimozione potenziata da Spellboost. Inoltre, ha bisogno di diversi metodi di pesca carte, poiché questo amplierà la tua mano (si spera con carte Spellboostable) sfruttando al massimo la meccanica Spellboost. Deve anche utilizzare alcune carte specifiche, per esempio Flame Destroyer (per impostare la combo OTK Dimension Shift-Flame Destroyer), Fiery Embrace e Windblast (per affrontare le minacce nemiche) e ovviamente Dimension Shift stessa.
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Scegliere la Condizione di Vittoria
After you have determined your main and sub archetype, it's time to put a win condition in your deck. A win condition is basically the main way to achieve victory with your deck. This can be a specific set of cards, or just the general structure of your deck. Both versions of win conditions can work, as long as you build your deck around your win condition.
- An example of a win condition which is a specific set of cards is the Enstatued Seraph + Countdown reducers package (comunemente usato dalla classe dei Chierici).
- An example of a win condition which is a general structure of your deck is an Aggro deck with a lot of Storm followers and direct damage spells.
If your win condition is to rush the opponent down before they can react or recover, including a lot of cheap cards with Storm or direct damage is the way to go. You can also opt to simply win board control using powerful on-curve followers, and use this to win the game before the opponent can take back board control. Midrange and Aggro decks usually use this kind of win condition, but some of them also use a specific set of cards to win. Per esempio, la condizione di vittoria di Midrange Shadowcraft è vincere il campo e sopraffare l'avversario, ma sono in qualche modo dipendenti da Demon Lord Eachtar e Underworld Ruler Aisha come finisher.
Control decks usually have strong lategame followers as a win condition. This means that if they can reach the lategame and play these followers while having reasonable Defense left, they usually win. Examples of lategame non-combo win conditions are Bahamut, Mordecai the Duelist and Heavenly Aegis. These followers are either very hard to deal with (very hard to remove and can trade into opponent's board for free) or shatter the opponent's board, which gives you an opportunity to take back board control. In order to reach this win condition, Control decks include a lot of cheap defensive cards and removal to survive and buy time.
La Curva dei Punti Gioco (Play Point Curve)
The "curve" is the amount of cards you have dedicated to any one play point cost in your deck in relation to all other cards with different mana costs in the deck. The curve of a deck varies based on the archetype of the deck.
- For example, Control Decks usually have a large amount of midgame (turn 4-7) and lategame (turn 7+) cards. They usually do have some early game (turn 1-3) cards, but those usually fulfill a defensive purpose (like Bellringer Angel or Unica).
- Aggro decks on the other hand have a lot of early and midgame cards. This allows them to gain board control early and start chipping at the enemy leader's HP bar. Aggro decks usually have a few late game finishing cards (like Genesis Dragon or Albert), just in case they can't end the game during the midgame.
While your card draw is random, you do have some influence over your curve. Putting a lot of lategame cards in your deck makes it more likely that you will draw a high PP cost card when you don't want to. This basically creates the scenario where the opponent can fill his board while you can't play any card until later turns.
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On the other hand, putting too much early game cards in your deck may cause you problems in the later stages of a match, because you can easily dump your hand on the board. Not only this, but because low PP cost cards usually are far less powerful than lategame cards, drawing an early game card on turn 10 can cost you the game. For this reason, it is very important to make a deck with a 'good' curve, which contains cards from each power level (early, mid or late). How much cards of each power level you put in your deck depends on the archetype of the deck. As said earlier, aggro needs early and midgame cards, with a few lategame finishers. Control needs a few early game cards, accompanied by a vast amount of midgame and lategame cards.
Tipi di Carte e Funzionalità
In Shadowverse there are two main types of cards; cards that build your own board and cards that remove the opponents board. Almost every deck has several cards of both types, although the ratio of the cards of both types vary depending on the deck archetype.
- For example, Control Decks usually focus on removing the opponents board during the early and midgame, so they can survive to the point that they can play powerful cards to turn the tides.
- Aggro Decks usually have a lot of cards that build their own board, so that they can use their followers to kill the opponent before they have a chance to build their own board. However, Aggro Decks tend to run a small amount of removal, in case the opponent plays big threats or Ward followers.
Besides the two main types (Board Building and Board Removal) there are also cards who can do both. There are a lot of followers that can provide some kind of removal. These hybrid cards allow the player to build their own board, while removing a threat from the enemy. Examples of cards that do this are Dance of Death, Dragon Warrior and Siegfried. This kind of cards is very powerful, and thus widely used across a variety of decks. It is very important for deck building to consider both types and the hybrid type for your deck.
Valore Individuale e Sinergia delle Carte
The individual value of a card basically means the amount of stats (Defense+Attack) and the usefulness/power of it's effect (if it has one). Stats are in most cases the most important way to determine if a card is valuable enough to be included. There are guidelines that determine if a follower has good stats for it's cost. Most of the time, followers will be compared with the vanilla follower (meaning it has no effects) of the same Play Point cost.
For example, a 1/2 or 2/1 statline is the amount you want from a 1-cost follower. If a follower of that cost has a lower statline and the same cost, you want it to have an effect powerful enough to compensate for the lost stat point. For example, Elf Child May and Fairy Whisperer are widely used even though they don't have an optimal amount of stats for their cost. The reason for this is that their effects are useful and powerful enough to compensate for the lost stats. The individual value of a card is extremely important in Take 2, since you can't rely on the synergystic value of the card there. This is of course because you get random cards.
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Not only the individual value of a card is important. Another important aspect of deck construction is the synergy between the cards in the deck. A card may be bad or suboptimal on it's own, but when combined with other cards in the deck, it becomes much better. For example, Luxfang Kit is a pretty bad card on it's own. It's just a 2 pp 2/1 on it's own, but when combined with a discard effect, it suddenly becomes a free 2/1. This is the reason Luxfang Kit is commonly used in Discard Dragon decks. Shadowcraft followers who can only attack the enemy leader or followers with Ward are another example of suboptimal individual cards. If the enemy doesn't destroy them or play a follower with Ward, their Last Words effects won't trigger. But when you combine these followers with cards that can destroy your own followers (like Soul Conversion, Urd or Necroassassin), they suddenly become a lot stronger.
When considering to add a card to your deck, you have to compare it with cards of similair Play Point Costs or cards with a similair effect. For example, there are a lot of 2 cost followers, but you only need a few of them. Also, it is important to compare a card to cards with similair effects. For example, Dance of Death and Execution both are 5 Play Point Spells that have the ability to destroy an enemy follower. However, putting both in your deck is not efficient, especially against Aggro Decks.
Carte "Tech" per Contrastare la Meta
To put the cherry on the cake, you can choose to replace certain cards in your standard decklist with some cards that are used to counter specific things. One of the most well-known tech cards is Odin, which is used as a specific counter to Seraph's Havencraft and Mordecai the Duelist. It allows you to destroy the win condition of the enemy, usually destroying their chances of winning. However, it is bad against most other decks, especially against decks that don't use important Amulets. Another example of a tech card is replacing Dance of Death with Execution.