Shadowverse CCG

So far, this is the only turn-based game - digital or not, card game or not - that I have ever seen which managed to fix the going first problem. There are games thousands of years old that fail to think of this sort of solution, so hats off to that. It's still impossible for them to be 50/50 in split though, as certain decks still prefer either 1st or 2nd depending on its aggressive nature. Perhaps another millenium of game design experience can help with that.

I've played every high-profile digital card game at this point. I will not mention their faults by name, but Shadowverse does not have terrible design decisions such as: mana screws, consistent FTKs, fatigue mechanics, anti-competitive push, wide-range randomness, anti-f2p practices, shadow lane.

What Shadowverse offers over its competitions: very generous business model, active community and support, the going first fix as mentioned above, variety of archetypes (as I will explain below), replays, very transparent chances in terms of card pulling, great community support in terms of balance and communication, actual interesting single player content.

What Shadowverse doesn't, and should, have: built-in tournament mode, a greater variety of missions, better Take Two balancing, perhaps more unique game modes, but most importantly a functional, clean desktop UI.

Now let's talk about balance for a short bit. At the moment of writing, we're in the post-nerf RoB meta. Here's to get it out of the way: every class is viable in Masters, and every class has at least 2 archetypes that is viable, and I'd dare say the only reason these (2) classes have less variety is because their good decks are so strong. Outside of this, meme decks are viable across the ladder, things like Earth Rite, PTP, Nepthys, Lord Atomy, Rose Queen and many more aren't tournament viable, but they are fun, different, and can definitely work if you're invested. I cannot think of a single card game, that isn't 2007 Yugioh or Faeria that has this kind of variety, and Faeria is cross-class.

There's a point here to be made about artstyle, but it does grow on you eventually (like everything else, to be fair). It's also free to play, collect, and compete, so yeah. I've spent $6 so far in this game, purely out of a sense of support that anything else.

It's a f2p card game that you can actually play f2p instead of suffering endlessly while trying to get some sort of meta deck. In addition, it has a sizable playerbase and good gameplay balance (despite how often some people may bitch about Daria). Don't let the anime artstyle scare you off if you like TCGs/CCGs, Shadowverse is one of the best games in the genre.

Before writting this review, I didn't realise that I have spent my times over 300 hours on this game!!
I think this can explain how much fun of this game (atleast it is what I feel to this game).

If you love card games and looking for one of it, I definitely recommend this "Shadowverse".
The game play is easy to understand and animate cards are very charming.

Give it a try and decide it by yourself.

Thanks

Play style of this game is much similar to hearth stone.

It is good and bad things both this game is having.
But there are some points why Shadowverse is better than HS.

I played a little initial version of MTG by single playing game version almost 10 years ago and I am experienced Yugioh for years. I played HS in open beta season and blackrock season. But I didn't played HS long time and didn't pay my money for that because it isn't worthy for that. But Shadowverse isn't. Although it is phone based game and contents are smaller than HS, basic systems are showing more completeness.

1) Optimization on battle system/sequence by "evolution"

Basic battle system and aim for this game is differed by this evol point.
Play time is much short and battle details are more flexible in situations.
It is not the perfect answer for boring and non-flexible HS style combat system but it can be estimated as one of the simplest answer for that.
Only addition of this evol system is making more various fun situations.
It is good pros of this game with 2)

2) more flexible and decent special talents of cards (relatively not-restricted special rules)

If you compare special abilities of cards in SV, you could feel it's texted abilities are more strong or more flexible.
Yeah I agree there are also many dull cards but standard gaps between skill powers against HS are much larger.
It reminds me card skilles shown in MTG. So flexibility of situations are larger than HS.
It could be one of the bad point in HS, not good point of SV. But at least I think flexibility of SV is good enough to play fun.

As I said in 1) and 2), rule and vision of this game is watching is much better than HS. That's right thing and it release my complains from HS.

3) SV gives more chance to get card or packs. So if you are no-pay player, you don't have to get pain from inner conflict for money. I think it's just a personal matter but you know, just try this game whatever you are gonna leave or not.

But also it has various cons too.

1) Because the origin of this game is phone game base, some points of UI is not comfortable.
If I want to see large size card image, I must click many times to get it from 'cards' tap. If I am playing vs match or I am in deck maker tap, I cannot see them in full size. Actually it is not critical point but bad thing is bad thing.

2) You know, I like this game and like beutiful images too but... otaku or whatever... people say like it.
I wish there would be various card images covering various spectrum of artistic styles.
THERE ARE TOO MANY GIRLS BRO. I AM NOT A GAY But I want more MAN images.
My favorite card is Ice blade warfiend in vamp.
I understand. They made idol master or other games and they had success from them.
But I wish Cygames understand that sexuality is not the only sales point of this game.

3) You can get high value cards easily but gaps between high value cards vs bronze are very big.

They are also good bronze cards but very many cards are useless. They are not useless only in higher rank games but also useless in initial decks for newbies. It's not that big problem and other games have similar issues too. Also difficulty to get gold or legendary in SV is not that harsh. But the bad thing is bad thing.

Because there are too many useless cards in low valued bronze cards, deck making choices are very restricted. Though the game is started recently and it's initial state of the game, core/good cards and trash cards are extremely classified. This phenomenon is shown less in gold and legendary. But for core sets or cards are restricted, some leader has little option for making various decks. I think It is one of the most important issue SV is facing now.
Yeah just let's see what would come in next season.

4) Though the rules are much better than HS as I said above, those are not perfect and having balance issues too.

winrate between 1st turn and 2nd turn is very different in various decks and too much OP decks are hard to play against. It is also related to problem 3).
If someone is having fullset of 1 tier deck and the opponent is not having key card to counter or finish enemy, it is very clear to win in match. In my country, It is called as like that "they just play game alone watching wall". If you have OTK decks or Full-defense and seraph special win decks, there is very little interactions against opponent and decision making situations.

5) Lack of national voice support.

In steam version, only ENG version of text and voice sounds are supported.
I wish to hear it as Jap version or KOR version because I'm korean.
Those voices I can hear them in twitch streams are charming but absence of those language and voice support is very big disadvantage of steam users.
I really want them all can be used. At least, I wish cygames make make available it in creative forums because there are unofficial kor version patch.
I can update it not officially but if it would be possible in steam itself, it would be more helpful to me and I also want to hear Jap voices too.
I think it is not that hard and wish to be done.



One more I want to emphasize is the balance issue. As many people are blaming this point, some of decks are very annoying and disgusting to play against. It is not different from "difficult". 1~2 tier decks usually and strongly counter very broad spectrum of "normal" decks.

Also most of high tier decks are too much strong in draw plays. Even OTK elf is very fast and have strong draw ability. Wall deck Bishop, Tempo WITCH are also drastically strong at just drawing and keeping cards.

The balance problem is making this game worse and worse.

Quite enjoyable aesthetically pleasing game that I put a decent amount of free time into.

Art 8/10 - Enjoy the anime type art style, but due to the large amount of artists art can be very stratified and different. I personally don't mind the revealing art whatsoever, but be warned. This game most likely isn't for children 13 and under.

Gameplay 9/10 - Generally follows 3 main ideas similar to another card game Hearthstone. You want to control your card advantage, board presence, and tempo. By itself the game would be pretty mediocre (one of the reasons why I quit HS), but Shadowverse introduces the evolve mechanic. Evolving creatures generally boosts stats and lets them instantly attack into another creature. I personally love the huge tempo swings experienced from evolves and that keeps me invested into the game.

Developers 9/10 - Some games often dump progression into a strict meta (Such as HS pushing the aggro meta). Despite the undesirable and often unfair games, the problem isn't the meta, its the developers' responsiveness to the desires of the community. I personally feel that the developers of Shadowverse (actual players of other card games) understand what is happening to the ladder and are making a step which will benefit the most. One thing we don't need is sudden, rash decisions in designing such a large game. Shadowverses' developers have not gone to balance too many cards yet so that aspect is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that Shadowverses' developers are one of the most F2P friendly card game developers. They often give out free packs making it super easy to F2P, something I will capitalize next.

Free To Play-ability 10/10 - Starting the game gets you 30-40 packs for free, which can almost always provide you with enough vials to craft a competitive deck for ladder. Free packs from promotions and tons of quick rewards only speed up the growth of your collection. As of now, Shadowverse is the most f2p friendly card game (Out of HearthStone and Magic [Haven't tried Evoker yet]).

Is there any pay to win BS?
Shadowverse also offers the sale of crystals, which can be used to purchase more packs and pre-built decks. Despite the initial view that spending money leads to a greater advantage, skill and knowledge often play a greater factor in determining the outcome of games than solid card quality. Therefore I would say this game is almost completely free of pay-to-win because you can still lose running a deck with terrible card quality but if you have a decently competitive deck a lot of the games come down to skill.
Edit: With the new expansions coming out and releasing cards on a new level of power, I would have to modify my original statement. Card quality does matter now.

Is it worth it for a new player to spend money?
Shadowverse is excellent for new players as they offer the magic of pre-built decks. Pre-built decks are great because they offer a solid selection of cards and guarantee necessary legendaries for a craft. They cost 500 crystals for the first purchase (increasing to 750 for ever subsequent purchase), which is literally only 5$ during a crystal sale. I feel like they carry their value as they bring in critical legendaries (which of course can be crafted if you don't have spare change) while introducing how crafts should be played. Currently, the most valuable pre-builts are the Bloodcraft prebuilt (control blood), Forestcraft prebuilt (almost every forestcraft deck uses cards from this pre-built), and Shadowcraft prebuilt.

I would definitely rate Shadowverse a solid 9/10 overall due to its defining characteristics, solid gameplay, and f2p aspects. I hope you have the same enjoyment I did while playing this game, and don't be too competitive while playing. After all, its a card game.

Gameplay has many similarities to Hearthstone, but that's when learning the basics. Each class as you can expect has their own mechanics, but even with (right now) three expansions there's good versatility to create all kinds of Decks. Sure that there's the fear of facing the meta/tier decks on higher ranks, but its card pool allows creativity enough to make many things work together. Finally there's its unique feature called Evolution, a limited resource that can turn arround games or give you an immediate answer against opponent actions. This mechanic is what makes the game stand out compared to others, as managing its use is the main learning curve of the game.

The game also gives a big welcome to new players with several rewards on the go, and along a very friendly card pull ratio soon enough you can build a solid deck in a pair of days. And even if you are in bad luck is not difficult to make low budget decks with the cards available. However keep on mind that some classes are harder to learn than others, being the main challenge to learn the game (Like Swordcraft is newbie friendly by summoning and boosting small monsters, while Havencraft requires stalling and shortcuts for their cards to start working). There's also Take Two (Arena or Draft format), which by default gives you a pack by trying and other bonuses the more wins you get, and you can get tickets for free by simply playing Ranked.

With all sorts of ways to earn packs with high pull ratio, a diverse card pool allowing many strategies to work regardless of budget, and many game modes to tutorial newcomers through all its mechanics, is a solid card game which sets you ready to face other newcomers and experts after a few hours learning. Just keep on mind that the game is quite aggro encouraging with its Evolution mechanic along certain effects, so might give you a negative experience if you don't learn the matchups. Overall, a solid game for anybody who wants to try a card game but don't wanna wallet through to make a decent Deck, as well those who got tired of other card games and wanna start with a solid build immediately.

The game plays really well, especially because of the "evolve" mechanic.

You get an incredible amount of free cards at the beginning and from some early quests. This makes the first few hours a blast.

However, the second player has a HUGE advantage, making some games feel like a coin-toss between who has to start.

Also, the meta sucks. If you don't like playing aggro, midrange or zoo, you are in bad luck pretty much. Because of the lack of comeback mechanics and AoE (except for Bahamut, which is a legendary) there is almost no way of stopping the bleeding as a control deck.


I really wanted this to be the CCG that really hooks me, and it did for a while. Sadly, I was dissapointed by the meta and cards that are in the card pool right now.

I currently have 325 hours put into this (not including mobile). With confidence I can say Shadowverse is absolutely worth playing. It's in a league of its own when compared to it's closest rival, Hearthstone. Most of the negative reviews are people who are just spiteful aor do not fully understand the game.

Pros:
Very F2P friendly, you don't have to spend anything to make a few competitive decks. You get TONS of gold and free packs, while declining oly a little bit in income later. There is no paywall or super grinding after initial rewards.

There is no one dominate play style. Unlike Hearthstone which caters to aggro, Shadowverse's meta is always changing and adapting due to players countering. There are very rarely any buffs or nerfs to card.

Much less RNG than Hearthstone. There are very few cards that draw or do things randomly, and the cards that do, are still very particular in what they do so you can still control the outcome

Steam and Mobile versions can be linked so you can play on the go

Ranking rewards reset each month, however your actual rank doesnt.



Cons:
UI could use a rework but its functional
Some of the art is very suggestive which can be a problem if you're playing in public
Some of the voice acting is terrible, but rest are fine
The premium currency (Crystals) seem a bit expensive, but the game is already F2P friendly enough.

A very nice substitute for Hearthstone! Although Shadowverse follows in Hearthstone's footsteps, the game has its own bunch of unique game mechanics that offers more strategic and interactive gameplay than Hearthstone in some aspects.
The game is japanese however and their reputation of being perverts does unfortunately not end here regarding the amount of fan-service the game includes. This might be a plus for some ;) but for most this is a sign of a bad game with little else content. I assure you however that this not the case since the game contains a good dose of interesting cards and classes that opens up lots of different ways to win, and great original game mechanics that helps matches of the game not feel as simple or uninteractive as they are in Hearthstone at the moment.

Great game. Similar to hearthstone but without a lot of the problems that hearthstone has.

Tons of rewards for new players to help them get right into the game. After the tutorial they give you 40+ free packs and then from beating the ai with the characters you get free take two tickets (draft mode) and unlock some great cards that you'll be using in your decks for a very long time (some are standard in high ranked meta decks). Their individual stories are interesting and not too long. They give you a daily reward just for logging in and 3 quests. If you want to be a free player it's far easier to do so vs other ccgs.

The evolve mechanic is great. Starting on turn 4 The player that went second can evolve a minion which gives it a buff (and on specific cards triggers an ability) and allows it to attack on the turn it's played. The player that went first gets two uses of this ability, the player that went second gets three. It really helps balance out the initial advantage of going first and leads to very interesting gameplay/stratagies.

The draft mode (take two) has you choose two cards for your deck at a time between two pairs of cards. This leads to some very interesting decisions. Do you take the two cards that are both just ok quality or do you take the pair that has one good card and one not so great card.

If you do want to spend some money they have several pre-built decks for you to buy that have strong legendaries in them and are worth the $. If you just want packs they have a daily deal where you can buy a pack a day at half the normal price.

I love the card art in this game, it's very well done. The animations are great as well.

The makers of this game really seem to care about their players time. I've gotten many free packs from when they were a couple of hours late on an update... and I wasn't even around trying to play the game at the time.

Highly reccomended.

When I first started up Shadowverse, I was incredibly impressed. The gameplay was fun, they showered me with free packs, and I was really getting into it. The graphics and sounds are quite lovely for a CCG, making each card feel especially powerful or wimpy as appropriate.

At first the card balance felt spot on. I had a good bit of fun playing decks of my own design not even resorting to net decks (decks that are competitive and posted online). Early game cards didn't feel as though they just rocked the game, and end game cards felt sufficiently powerful to merit having them.

Then as I moved up in experience and power, I started engaging more experienced players, I ran into the same issue I have in most other online CCGs. The net decks start taking over. People with multiple copies of especially powerful mid to late game cards become more abundant. The freedom to experience the card game, to experiment with the cards, and to make a deck which feels as though it was truly mine diminished greatly. With recent expansions they even added extremely obnoxious and powerful end game cards which can be seen in almost every deck you play against. They are truly so powerful that not using them puts you at a significant disadvantage, and you must always be prepared to counter them, especially if you don't have them yourself.

As a passing Hearthstone player, I took up this game based on word of mouth hoping that it could scratch the CCG itch that Hearthstone was seriously lacking as of late, a similar CCG with stagnant gameplay.

The new player experience is awesome. I can't deny that I had fun playing this game initially; However, down the road, bear in mind that the players who play to win will overwhelm experimental gameplay, and how well you're doing as a new player won't reflect on your performance once you start encountering said players. Sadly, my joy for this game has passed.

If you are a player who enjoys experimenting with cards with a reasonable degree of success, I wouldn't recommend this game. But, if you don't mind taking the time and effort to acquire said extremely powerful cards to get an edge on people who don't have them, then feel free to give it a try. Such is the nature of CCGs, and I personally don't even know why I even bother trying them anymore.

For players of my expectations, this game is not recommended.

Yes, it's a lot lilke Hearthstone, a game I enjoy immensely.

BUT ... the quality of life touches in Shadowverse just make this game so much nicer to play.

- Deck codes allow you to import an entire deck list instead of building it card by card.
- Replay mode lets you review your last 10 games.
- Story mode is more challenging and interesting than the Hearthstone tutorial.
- Daily rewards just for logging in.
- THREE quests every day.
- Rewards for reaching milestones in Ranked play.
- Special events with even more achievements and unique rewards.
- Prebuilt decks available for purchase, allowing you a 100 percent chance of getting certain cards.

HOWEVER ... I've now played enough of the game to see that the balance is very heavily skewed toward high-end-combo play. Most games between competitive decks are just a race to see who can get the big legendary combo off first, or to see if you can play your combo before the other guy draws the counter. All other turns are rendered trivial, so in a lot of cases it just boils down to a coin toss.

I'm not going to take back my positive review because I really do admire the foundation. And I recognize that other people do like this style of gameplay; it's just not for me. So while I'm going to uninstall it after saving this revised review, I still think it's worth a try for those who like CCGs. It's free, after all, and they are pretty generous with the cards, even though you'll never get enough free cards to be competitive.

It's pretty much HS but with some different elements to it, I prefer this over HS any day. As far as F2P go this game is the essence of it, it gives you so much from just playing it, it's insane, you can have a pretty good deck in little time without spending cash. If you enjoy CCG I would for sure recommend this game, has alot of cool decks and builds, lots of personality, great art, lots of missions and achievements that give you awards, ends up being quite addicting to play.

This CCG has its own cancer deck(s) of course, but it's still good enough to recommend, since my experience is: a tiny bit of frustration, which quickly goes away, and a whole bunch of fun, that you won't forget any time soon. Most of the following is very subjective, so that's an other reason to try the game, but of course reading different opinions might help you decide if the game is for you, so here we go! (I'll try to stay objective, where I can. Tl;dr: check the "OVERVIEW" part.)

THE LOOKS:
The animations on the cards in a lot of cases look great, even if the mostly anime style drawings are not to your liking. And even if they're not to your liking, they are mostly very well drawn. A lot of the cards are drawn in this style, but definitely not all: some of them give a "classic" fantasy vibe, so they're just pleasant to look at. The overall look of the game however can be a little bit confusing/too much at first. There can be a lot of effects on the screen at the same time, which can make the game look less appealing.

THE SOUNDS:
I've seen some people complain about the voice acting. While it's not the greatest, it's definitely not that bad, and I don't even think it even has to be great. This is a free card game after all, and for its "price", it delivers. I've seen (and heard) a LOT of very bad voice acting in games and movies too, and if you're experienced, you can clearly see the effort they put in the voices. The music is not horrible either, but it IS made of few minutes long loops, so if you don't like that... well, you're gonna listen to your own music anyway after a while, so in this case you'll just start sooner. Not that they're bad loops though. On the other hand one thing I really like is the voice acting of the cards (that speak). In most cases they're consistent with the creatures' personalities, sometimes even if it changes when you evolve them (Lucifer). I also love that you can make emotes clip into each other, but again, some do not like that you can spam 3 emotes/turn. I agree however, that there could be more emotes, as sometimes I feel I can't react to the opponent's emotes appropriately.

GAMEPLAY:
You can decide on your own, if you like the voice acting and the look of the cards (or rather, their "anime style" drawing). But don't judge it only by its looks! The game itself has some pretty good and unique mechanics, so even if the look of the game is not your favorite, it is still possible to have fun thanks to the variety of these mechanics, and the comebacks that seem to happen quite often, especially in lower ranks.
There are a bunch of unique features too, like Private Play Take Two (which means that you can play arena with a friend for free). But you are constantly reminded, that not everyone has the same idea of "fun" as you do. There ARE cancerous decks with cancerous "combos" - the most recent being the Daria Runecraft deck. At lower (than Master) ranks at least half of the games I've played were against aggro decks, though it IS possible to win against them with a good enough control deck. Of course if you'd like to depend only on the free packs you receive, there's a chance you won't have all the necessary cards, so making an aggro deck in most cases will be much easier. This, however won't be as fun imo, as playing a control/midrange or a less easy combo deck.

OVERVIEW:
I think this game you'll just have to see for yourself. There's one very important thing to keep in mind though: you're here to have FUN. Yes, there are less balanced cards, yes, there are copy-paste netdecks. But overall the game delivers. I really enjoy most of the matches, and when I meet said netdecks, I still have fun. How? I guess I just know that this is a game. If you only care about ranking, just copy a deck and off you go, but if you care about the adventure the possibilities have to offer, try different combinations of different cards!
BUT! Before you make an okay deck, and start to rank up like crazy, remember: the game becomes MUCH harder, after you reach rank C/B (depending on your deck). In lower ranks it is easier to complete your daily quests. If you want to stay in lower ranks until you have a decent enough deck, then it's a great opportunity to try "worse" decks. Let the experiments begin! In this way you'll gain experience (literally and in-game) which will be very useful, if you'd like to know your opponents AND the possible combos you can pull off with your cards that you've never used before.

All in all Shadowverse is a great experience, especially if you know how to treat it (as a game). Don't be afraid to give it a chance! You can't waste your time if you're at least a little bit interested in the game. I hope this helped you in some way!

Shadowverse, for awhile seemed like an optimal replacement for Hearthstone or just a nice card game for newcomers.

POSITIVES:

The game is a refreshing card game that you'll likely enjoy if you've enjoyed games like Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering. There are many different ways to build decks and the classes are pretty diverse in how they play.

Getting wins early on with a custom deck feels very rewarding, and the game can be very addictive!

I also need to give the game props for being quite generous! The game gives you 45 packs if I recall correctly to start out, which is pretty dang good. That combined with the fact that you earn gold just via logging in and completing single player and what not is pretty nice. It would be nice if you could earn gold just by playing and/or winning games without having to adhere to the daily missions.

So, Shadowverse is certainly a great game. However, if you don't have someone to play with like me, you'll find that the more you play, the more the game falls into the same pitfalls as Hearthstone unfortunately. Which caused me to gradually lose interest.

With that said...


NEGATIVES:

Shadowverse certainly does have a lot of neat strategies and deck types, but it suffers from a similar problem of the developers not balancing cards that are clearly way too good.

(The higher you make it ranked play, the more you'll see less variety and the more you'll see the same decks. The biggies I see the most often are that are pretty infamous: Runecraft Daria and Bloodcraft Aggro)

Some specifics that you may want to skip: There are cards that have mathematical objective improvements and I can't fathom how the cards were designed and considered to be okay (if you get high in ranked not playing Runecraft, you'll learn to hate one card: Daria, as virtually every runecraft deck is built around that card or dimensional shift). Aggro decks sometimes are impossible to win against due to the nature of essentially needing to draw certain cards quickly to deal with the insane damage output, you can lose as soon as turn 5 against an aggro deck.

It's funny in a way, because the Bloodcraft classes's mechanic is that certain Bloodcraft cards will have unique effects if your hero is below 10 defense (which is health). However, aggro is so insanely effective and quick that you'll never see bloodcraft decks that actually utilize that mechanic.

(There are of course, other decks you'll encounter in your ranked adventures, Havencraft control, Swordcraft aggro, shadowcraft control/aggro. There's certainly more variety than I encountered in Heathstone, so that's to be noted.)

So, most of my complaints with the game are similar to my complaints to Hearthstone: Aggro is very effective and not very skill-based (in most cases, mostly Bloodcraft) to play well and win quickly. And there's some cards that very clearly need fine-tuning but never get altered.

The game provided me fair amount of hours of entertainment, and I'd probably have more fun if I had a friend (single tear) to play gimmick decks with as even in unranked I mostly encounter meta decks. I should note I'm A3 rank, I'm fairly "experienced" so I'd like to think I'm somewhat knowledgeable, but I'm no pro by any means!]

Couple things to add, there's a "Take Two" mode which is equivilent to the arena mode in Hearthstone, so there's also that. And there's a short campaign for each class with a neat lil story, also nice!

CONCLUSION (finally):

The game is good. It's just a shame because the problems it suffers from could be be lessened greatly by some simple fine-tuning I would think. BUT if you have someone to battle against that's a big bonus, and the game still has a great deal to offer so I do still reccomend it.

I'm a Master rank player (highest rank ingame) with several hundred hours playtime on the mobileversion, but since the Rise of Bahamut patch I simply can't recommend Shadowverse anymore. I used to love this game, but with the Rise of Bahamut patch the competitive aspect of this game went down the gutter.


RNG/Rock-Paper-Scissors:
The game has become an RNG fest: extreme machtup based deck winrates up to 61,9+%, also winrates for the same deck that differ around 12,2+% based on whether you go first or second (Source: https://shadowverse.gamepress.gg/meta-deck-analytics-january-23-29 - set filter to Master rank). More than that - an infestation of hyper-snowballing decks like daria and cancerous insta-win cards like Seraph (draw Odin in time or lose the game) or Dimension Shift(: 1 player with 4-turns in a row "interactive and fun").
A meta consisting of Aggro, OTK-Combo/Control and hyper-snowballing (Daria).
Small EDIT: Some new numbers arrived - we're seeing matchup based winrates up to 78,3% when going 2nd. (Source: http://shadowlog.com/trend/2017/4/4/55 Aggro-Daria vs Swordcraft(class average!)).


As somebody who achieved the highest rank in Shadowverse I just can't recommand the game (post Rise of Bahamut) anymore. RNG might not be as obvious as in Hearthstone, but Rock-Paper-Scissor-matchmatcking determines a vast majority of games.
I used to love Shadowverse, but with skill becoming less and less of a factor, I - as well as other top rank players - are personally losing the fun in this game.


Don't trust me? Read some opinions of different master rank players:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5p7z0n/i_hit_masters_and_im_quitting_due_to_the_state_of/?st=iy6m2nz0&sh=1aab0070

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5ot5yk/rant_current_state_of_the_game/?st=iy6m2t5o&sh=feda58fd

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5p7shl/made_it_to_masters_meta_thoughts_and_deck/?st=iy6m2tt7&sh=0f11b20b

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5lsfz2/a_new_master_rises_memes_decklists_commentary/?st=iy6m4olr&sh=391a28a5


Summary:
If you're not into competitive gaming feel free to try Shadowverse as your to-go casual cardgame, it has a lot of aspects that make it more interesting than Hearthstone. From a Master rank's persepective on competitive play I just can't recommend it anymore, though.


Also a warning: Avoid the Reddit Shadowverse community, it's EXTREMELY toxic and due to the average low ranks you are likely to get REALLY bad advice.

If you still want to try out Shadowverse use these sides for help:
https://shadowverse.gamepress.gg/tier-list
https://gameband.me/?game_id=14
http://xn--shadowverse-e63t796khk9bk11e.com/%E3%83%87%E3%83%83%E3%82%AD/tier-ranking-deck/ (I recommand this one, the site is japanese, though)
http://game-ai.jp/12306/

A very generous, deep and enjoyable F2P card battler. Tons of cards and interesting mechanics make this worth checking out for fans of the genre but give it some time to learn the systems etc before you give up on it. You will either love or hate the art style it is without a doubt 'Waifu:The Gathering' but I am not really one to be upset about drawings of large breasted women in armor (really, where would we be without Boris Vallejo or Margaret Brundage). Also slightly has a tablet game feel, but not too noticeable.Don't let any of this discourage you this is maybe the best card battler out right now.

I came to SV after playing Hearthstone since beta, I have all 90% of cards in HS(including legendaries), most cards are golden, donated shit tons of money. It was difficult to try a new card game after everything in HS, but my friends helped me to get used to it and now I understand how HS or should I say RNG land sucks compared to SV. Here you have to use brain cells when to evolve and what to play, the only RNG is card draw, like in any other card game. I can't recommend this game enough, even if you do not prefer an asian art style , it's worth at least to try.

Edit : as of now, Cygames seems to encourage fast games with many powerfull combos and finishers that can easily remove half of your health in one turn. While it's fun and all when you're the one accomplishing it, it feels really uninteractive when you're on the recieving end. Still, the devs are really generous with free packs. Does it make up for the repetitive and uninteractive gameplay? YMMV.

If you know Hearthstone, the digital collectible card game by Blizzard, then it's simple : while being fundamentally a japanese copy of Hearthstone, Shadowverse improves the formula in many quite important ways : more complex, less reliant on RNG, more generous in F2P content, and less greedy for the paid-content. However, in the competitive end of the game, you'll run into the same "problems" with a specific metagame and over-represented decks that tend towards short "aggro" games (but less aggravating than in Hearthstone).

If you don't, then let me elaborate a little : Shadowverse is a digital Collectible Card Game. CCG are a peculiar kind of games. They not only function as games, with rules, goals, a winner and a looser, but also as collection, where the goal is to "collect them all". As such, before considering investing time, and maybe money, into said game, you should be perfectly aware of one thing : collectible games are expensive. They're designed to make you pay to complete a collection, and what you pay is the feeling to make progress in that collection.

Not that it's impossible to play as a F2P! In fact, Shadowverse, in comparison to other CGG, is quite generous with its free content, and you can reasonnably expect to open roughly three free packs every two days. In comparison, Hearthstone is more like three packs in four days.

Imo, the best way to handle this kind of game is to manage your expectations : what is your goal?
- complete the collection? This game is kinda cheap for the collection aspect, investing roughly 90 dollars every three months should be enough to get one exemplary of each card (and yes, this is cheap...for this kind of game)
- be competitive? Because you get quite a lot of free stuff, you can reasonably make a free competitive deck by destroying all your useless cards and crafting the ones you will use.
- have fun by making weird decks? Shadowverse offer a "random" mode with rewards, Take two, which is quite cool and balanced.

Just note that doing everything at once will be really difficult.

That being said, Shadowverse is probably your best bet, because of how beginner-friendly it is. Good luck!

Very good card game!
I LOVE the art, the music is good, voiced cards, very smooth menus and gameplay, no choppiness. Player base is healthy, can find a match in a matter of seconds.
If you are bored of the rng cards in hearthstone, where matches are regulated by luck with cards that deal 3 damage for 1 player ad 6 damage for the opponent and all those kind of things, this is the game for you.
It's VERY generous towards free players, you get dozens of packs counting the starter packs, achievement packs, two to two tickets that reward packs, rupies to buy packs.
There is also a short story that reward you cards and tickets.
You can also buy prebuilt decks, which contain various rare cards and legendaries too, reducing the rng needed to find some cool legendary from packs!
If you like me love card games, you should definitely try it.

I LOVE THE DEVELOPERS!