By Cam Shea

Shadowverse is rapidly becoming a major player in the CCG space. The anime-infused card game recently hit eight million downloads and is gaining steam outside its native Japan. It’s not hard to see why – Shadowverse has some excellent mechanics and clever points of difference, such as bespoke resources for classes and the ability to evolve minions a limited number of times per game. Its team has also printed some truly impressive – and occasionally bonkers – cards. Not only that, but with an expansion coming every three months like clockwork, there really isn’t time for the meta to get stale.

The next – and third – expansion, Tempest of the Gods, will be out in less than a month (although the actual date hasn’t been announced) and introduces 104 new cards, including two new legendaries per class. We’ve already seen a cool mix of cards that promise to take the game in new directions (see the slideshow at the bottom), but today is a particularly special day, because Cygames has given IGN eight cards to exclusively reveal. Eight! That’s one for each class, plus one neutral Follower.

WARNING: If you’re new to shadowverse, what follows may be a bit involved. I’d recommend getting an overview of the game from my first feature on Shadowverse, and you should also read my piece The CCG With a “Win the Match” Card.

Let’s start with the legendary of the bunch – Maelstrom Serpent, a 5/5 Bloodcraft follower that costs eight play points and has the text “Fanfare: Summon a Maelstrom Serpent. Repeat until your area is full if Vengeance is active for you.” Yes, you read that right. Worst case scenario, you get two 5/5 followers for eight, one of which you can evolve into a 7/7 that can trade. Best case scenario, you fill your board with five 5/5s.

Obviously this card will be amazing against classes that primarily have single target removal, as opposed to AOE. It also plays into one of Control Bloodcraft’s key tactical elements – health manipulation. There are plenty of cards that benefit from being at 10 defense or below (i.e. Vengeance is active), such as Revelation, Diabolic Drain and Alucard, and then a HEAP of cards that bounce the player back up – Vampiric Kiss, Healing Angel, Wardrobe Raider, Temptress Vampire.

Maelstrom Serpent very much introduces another risk/reward opportunity for Bloodcraft, with some serious upside for having Vengeance active. It also potentially synergises with another new Bloodcraft card – Belphegor (below), which is a 4/4 for four play points with the text “Fanfare: Draw 2 cards. Deal Damage to your leader until their defense drops to 10 if Vengeance is not active for you.” You could play Belphegor, alongside Veight, Vampire Noble (for the taunt) on turn seven to ensure you have Vengeance active, then play Maelstrom Serpent on eight, followed by Temptress Vampire on nine to get out of the danger zone.

As someone who plays a lot of Control Bloodcraft I’m really looking forward to seeing how Maelstrom Serpent may change – or complement – the strategy of that Deck type.

Next up, we have Chimera, a silver rarity Runecraft follower which is a 4/4 that costs nine play points, with the text: “Fanfare: Deal 4 damage to an enemy follower. Subtract 0 from the cost of this card. Spellboost: Subtract 1 more.” This seems like a pretty good direction for the spellboost mechanic to go, given how powerful it can be.

What I mean by that is – Chimera is not a win condition, it’s more board-centric; a tool that can be used to regain control of the board. Look at it this way. One of the primary win conditions for Runecraft “D-Shift” decks right now is to use spellboost to reduce the cost of Flame Destroyers (7/7 followers that start at ten play points but cost less with each spellboost) down to next to nothing, then play them, followed by a cheap Dimension Shift (which starts at 18 play points but also gets cheaper through spellboost), allowing you to then attack with them before ideally using Dimension Shift again to attack again. It’s a burst combo and not a very interactive experience.

The stats on Chimera, however, are very much designed so that you can play it and use its fanfare to clear a minion, then evolve it and clear another minion. In a mid-range meta it’ll be good, in other words.

Will it also fit into everyone’s favourite Runecraft build – Daria – though? Possibly. The deck is definitely capable of spellboosting it down to a good price, and having more targets for cards like Craig, Wizard of Mysteria  or Clarke, Arcane Scholar is no bad thing. Hitting it with Daria would obviously be strong too, but not overly so. I like it.

Next up, Vagabond Frog, a bronze Swordcraft officer that costs three play points for a 1/2 body and has the text “At the end of your turn, gain Ambush.” Any faster Swordcraft deck that aggressively buffs its officers could definitely make use of this card, particularly against aggro. After all, it can be used to trade before cloaking itself again, a trick that could be used to take out small minions – think Fairies, bats, zombies etc. – over and over again.

Dragoon Scyther, meanwhile, is a 2/2 bronze rarity Dragoncraft follower that costs three play points and has the text “Bane. Fanfare: Gain Storm if Overflow is active for you.” It may seem underwhelming at first glance, but this is a playable follower for the early game and – effectively – a three play point hard removal in the late game. Imagine your opponent clears your board with Bahamut. You can play this and run it into Bahamut and still have seven play points left over to try and regain board control. Dragoon Scyther is yet another card that demonstrates an important aspect of Shadowverse card design – early game cards that aren’t a completely dead draw in the late game.

The final follower we have to reveal is Owlcat, a bronze rarity neutral follower, and another unassuming low drop that could have a stack of potential. A 2/1 for two play points, Owlcat has the text “Clash: Destroy the enemy follower if it has 1 attack.” Importantly, the “clash” effect – which occurs whenever this follower attacks another follower or is attacked by a follower – triggers before any followers take damage, so if your opponent has a 1/3 on the board, you can destroy it using Owlcat without taking damage. And similarly, your opponent can’t run his 1/3 into your Owlcat because his follower will die to the clash effect without hurting it. If we see a meta with a lot of tokens (i.e. fairies and bats) Owlcat could be a good choice.

Similarly, if stat manipulation is riffed on in this expansion, as hinted at by Heavenly Aegis (below), then Owlcat could also be a strong inclusion.

So those were our follower reveals. Now we have three brand new amulets to show you. Man-Eating Mangrove is a silver rarity three play point Forestcraft amulet with the text “Countdown (2) Whenever an enemy follower attacks your leader, deal 2 damage to that follower.” This seems like a pretty strong anti-aggro tool, as it gives you two turns that disrupt their game plan (it counts down over two turns before disappearing).

If you’re facing aggro Shadowcraft, for instance, this amulet can kill the vast majority of the low drops that the deck typically runs. They’ll be forced to use them to trade or simply not attack, giving you time to draw into board clears or get to your Evolve turns. Then again, in this example, maybe your opponent will just get the damage in and let his followers die in order to accrue shadows. No matter, it’s an interesting card.

The next card is Death’s Ledger, a gold rarity amulet for Shadowcraft. It costs four play points and has the text “Countdown (2) At the end of your turn, put a random Shadowcraft follower that costs less than your total number of play point orbs from your deck into play. Then destroy that follower.” This ties into the existing Shadowcraft deck type that is built around Nephthys – an eight cost 5/5 legendary follower with the text “Fanfare: Randomly put followers of different costs (excluding Nephthys) from your deck into play until your area is full. Then destroy those followers.”

Many builds of this deck only include followers that cost 2/4/7/8 play points, ensuring that when Nephthys is played, one follower at each of these costs will always be summoned, and the more expensive followers will basically always have beneficial effects when destroyed. At seven play points, for instance, is Underworld Watchman Khawy, which has the Last Words “Randomly destroy one of the strongest enemy followers in play and then restore X defense to your leader. X equals the destroyed follower’s attack.” And at eight play points is, of course, Mordecai the Duelist, a 5/5 follower with the Last Words “Summon a Mordecai the Duelist.” Yes, he’s indestructible. (But can be banished.)

You can see, then, how Death’s Ledger fits that gameplan, but there’ll need to be more support cards to make it viable. After all, the two key cards in the Nephthys deck cost seven and eight play points respectively, so can’t be drawn by this amulet until the late game, at which point you really need guaranteed results, and Death’s Ledger could just as easily pull out and destroy a two drop – of which this deck runs many. I suspect this card is designed to bridge a Last Words-focused deck from the mid-game into the late-game, and with the right support cards it could run a more focused selection of two and four drops.

Our last card reveal is an eight cost gold rarity Havencraft amulet called Tarnished Grail, which has the text “Countdown (3) Fanfare: Deal 2 damage to all followers. Last Words: Randomly put 3 of the following 4 cards into your hand: Servant of Darkness, Silent Rider, Dis’s Damnation, and Astaroth’s Reckoning.” Now, anyone who has been playing Shadowverse for a while would recognise those names, as they’re all cards in the Prince of Darkness’ Apocalypse Deck. Servant of Darkness is a 13/13 follower that costs five play points, Silent Rider is an 8/8 follower with Storm that costs six play points, Dis’s Damnation is a seven cost spell that deals seven damage to an enemy and restores seven defense to your leader, and Astaroth’s Reckoning is a ten cost spell that deals damage to the enemy leader until their defense drops to one.

This amulet, then, is kind of like Prince of Darkness without a body attached, but insane card draw. Could it be an alternative win condition in a Seraph deck? The same countdown reduction cards the deck runs for Enstatued Seraph could be used to get the powerful Apocalypse cards in hand.

All in all, some pretty great cards! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Check out the slideshow below to see all the other cards that have been revealed to date.

Cam Shea is senior editor in IGN’s Sydney office and spends too much time obsessing over CCGs. Tweet at him here.