As someone who’s dedicated a huge amount of time to Hearthstone over the last few years, Shadowverse was a refreshing change of pace when I first picked it up earlier this year. (You can read my overview of the game here.) While familiar in some respects, it has some really distinct points of difference, such as the ability to evolve minions, and classes with truly bespoke mechanics, and these give it a unique identity and intriguing gameplay possibilities.
Card games don’t stand still, of course, and Shadowverse recently launched its 109 card Darkness Evolved expansion. It’s a strong set, expanding archetypes, introducing new ideas and injecting plenty of additional life into the game as a whole. I’ve had a blast hopping back into the game, but one card in particular has really caught my attention.
The Shadowverse team, you see, aren’t afraid to print some absolutely bonkers cards. And unlike Hearthstone, where you’re limited to one copy of a legendary in your deck, as compared to two copies of any other card, in Shadowverse there’s no such restriction. You can have three copies of ANY card in your 40 strong deck. And that means that you can build decks around powerful legendary effects, because you can reliably get to them.
The Shadowverse team aren’t afraid to print some absolutely bonkers cards.
The card in question is Enstatued Seraph, and the heading for this feature is literally true. Enstatued Seraph costs eight play points (aka mana) and has no immediate effect. Instead, it’s a ticking time bomb. The essence of the card is that it sits on the board as an amulet, and at the start of each of your turns it is destroyed and reborn in a new form. Its final form is called Seraph Lapis, Glory Be, an amulet with a countdown timer of one and the text “Last Words: Win the match.” In other words, when that countdown goes off, its last words (aka deathrattle) are triggered and you win.
The Enstatued Seraph summons an Awakened Seraph, which summons a Renascent Seraph, which summons Seraph Lapis, Glory Be. And then you win.
In most games Enstatued Seraph represents inevitability. There are cards that can banish amulets (as opposed to destroying them, which would still trigger the Last Words), but not many, so that’s unlikely. Instead, your opponent basically has to rush you down before it kills them. And to be clear, it can kill them from full health, so once you have one of these on the board your opponent’s health becomes irrelevant and it’s just about holding out until it triggers.
Subtracts 1 from an amulet countdown.
Of course, it’s a slow card, and basically takes an entire turn to play in the first place, but Shadowverse is a game – at least where I am in the lower ranks – that’s nowhere near as tempo oriented as Hearthstone. Players often float a fair few play points, and board clears and single target removals are quite plentiful. Thus, you can often set up to play it.
Part of the fundamental strategy with this card is ending the game as quickly as possible after you’ve played it. The Havencraft deck I’ve been playing (first seen here) also runs cards like Hallowed Dogma and Sister Initiate. These both trigger the card’s next countdown, pushing it to its next form. I’ve had instances where the turn after I play Enstatued Seraph I’m able to trigger enough successive forms to win the game on the spot. It feels pretty disgusting to be honest, and being on the receiving end of it – with no way to counter it – is definitely frustrating.
An example of an Enstatued Seraph Havencraft build. (Via SilentCaay on YouTube.)
Is this a problem? I’m not sure. It’s not like I’m facing this tactic in ranked play very often. Most of the Havencraft opponents I face are playing a more traditional control game trying to extract value out of amulets that spawn big minions, as opposed to this style, which has plenty of heal, card draw and removal options to get you to your Enstatued Seraph win condition.
Plus, crazy OP end-game tactics like this have been a part of Shadowverse from the beginning. For example, Path to Purgatory is a neutral amulet from the base set that costs four play points and has the text “At the end of your turn, deal 6 damage to all enemies if you have at least 30 shadows.” This is also a card with looming inevitability.
The type of deck you play it in uses cards like Altered Fate - a two play point spell with the text “Discard your hand. Draw a card for each card you discarded.” - to quickly amass shadows. (In Shadowverse every minion killed, every spell played, every card discarded creates a shadow. If something is banished, however, it doesn’t.) 30 shadows is a lot in a 40 card deck, but some cards – such as Summon Snow (a three mana spell that summons a Snowman, but will summon more based on Spellboosts) – can generate several. And once you hit that magic number it’s basically a free board clear every turn plus six face damage.
Altered Fate helps you quickly build your shadow count, which then gets you to your Path to Purgatory win condition.
Another example would be the Dimension Shift Runecraft decks. Dimension Shift is an 18 play point (yes, 18!) spell with the text “Gain an extra turn after this one. Subtract 0 from this cost of this card. Spellboost: Subtract 1 more.” The deck, then, is geared around Spellboost synergy. How does Spellboost work? Well, any spell you cast activates the Spellboost cards in your hand. In the case of Dimension Shift, each time you play a spell, the cost of the card goes down by one. You’re basically trying to last until a turn where you can play it for very little alongside other cards, then get a free additional turn, during which you have a full set of play points to use AND can attack with any minions on the board.
On the road to getting there you’re Spellboosting a bunch of other cards too, and this gives the deck interesting versatility. Take Wind Blast as an example. It’s a two play point spell with the text “Deal 1 damage to an enemy follower. Spellboost: Deal 1 more.” If you find yourself facing off against an aggressive deck you can use this card early on to do one or two damage as you try to keep the board clear, but if you’re playing against a more controlling opponent it can simply sit in your hand, getting more and more powerful until eventually you use it to clear something big.
Any spell you play with these cards in hand impacts them. Dimension Shift gets cheaper and Wind Blast gets more powerful.
A final example; again from the base set – Prince of Darkness. This neutral legendary is a 6/6 and costs 10 play points. When he’s played, his fanfare (battlecry) replaces your deck with an Apocalypse Deck. And those cards are insanely strong. There’s a five cost 13/13, there’s a six cost 8/8 with Storm (charge) and there’s Astaroth’s Reckoning, a spell which costs 10 play points and puts the opponent at one health.
Hello Apocalypse!
Shadowverse, then, is a game with some crazy win conditions, and it might feel bad to lose to some of these tactics, but ultimately all the examples above happen later in the game, so you’re given the opportunity to identify what’s coming and try to do something about it.
Losing in a single turn to a Dimension Shift or Enstatued Seraph isn’t fun, but the flipside is that it’s cool that Shadowverse has so many builds that are more control and combo oriented, as opposed to being dominated by aggro or midrange. While both those styles obviously exist, they're just not as prevalent as in a game like Hearthstone. And even, for example, one of the strongest decks right now - Midrange Forestcraft - is actually more of a combo deck with serious burst.
Midrange Forestcraft has some powerful combos... and expensive cards.
The truth is that Shadowverse isn’t a game where you can simply fall behind on tempo and not come back. And that’s a good thing, and largely down to the evolve mechanic.
The genius of the evolve mechanic is that it almost guarantees that the game can swing back and forth, because both players have a powerful catch-up mechanic.
The genius of the evolution system, you see, is that it almost guarantees that the game can swing back and forth, because both players have a powerful catch-up mechanic built into the core of the gameplay. To reiterate the basics that I covered in my original feature, evolve allows you to play a minion from your hand and instantly evolve it into something much larger that can also attack an enemy minion. You can answer an opponent’s big threat instantly… but there are only so many times you can evolve, so you have to use the evolve points wisely, because they’re often the key to winning games.
It all adds up to a CCG where tempo and playing on curve is not the dominant strategy, and as I said in the intro, that's a nice change of pace. And as much as I may be unsure how to feel about a card like Enstatued Seraph, I can't help but admire the fact that it exists.
Let me know how YOU feel in the comments.
Cam Shea is senior editor in IGN's Sydney office and recently wrote a guide to Hearthstone for beginner/intermediate players. Tweet at him here.
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