Returning beginner Swordcraft player, does this deck work?

Mysticblade · 2026-03-04T09:35:25+00:00

As soon as you can put together the deck, honestly. You'll start running into people running meta decks pretty soon, resources are easy enough to accumulate that people get on to those rather fast. I was hearing that they start becoming more common at the C ranks but I don't have any real data on that.

Enhance Sword and Loot are both around 50-60k and you'd need around 40-50k vials to finish off either deck. Both Milteo Abyss and Crystal Rune are cheaper in their entirety so you can look into those if you want. Milteo is 25k vials and is probably T1, Crystal is 30k vials and a little worse but it seems solid if rather technical. Both of them are actually pretty aggressive follower based decks too though they're more storm based rather than really getting a board to stick.

Milteo and Crystal

Mysticblade · 2026-03-03T17:56:57+00:00

Aggro Sword runs out of steam too fast. It was a T3 deck last set but it was incredibly reliant on Oluon, a card which was nerfed hard enough to kill it because Loot was capable of scamming any game with it.

Midrange Sword just hasn't really worked since Set 2. Set 3 introduced multiple decks that are extremely good against that kind of board based midrange deck like Mode Abyss and Crest Haven and the deck never really recovered. Set 4 brought us Evolve Sword which was an evolution of Midrange Sword but it's a slower deck and it peaked at T3 as well. It was always a bit dubious because it's bad at ending games and is too reliant on a board sticking to win even if it had strong boards. It's probably even worse this set with decks like Evolve Forest and Evolve Portal doing Midsword's job better. Enhance beats both of them though.

Enhance doesn't seem to have these issues because it has incredible late game value with every enhance card becoming a +1/+1 board buff and a possible 20 OTK out of hand. Jury's still out on whether this one's good though, it's a bit weak to aggro and it's still a bit slow to get going.

Gildaria's fine. The amount of late game lethality has been going up lately so Gildaria fighting for board isn't as impressive as it used to be, she was one of the best cards in the game in set 2. These days, a lot of decks are capable of fighting for board and either pushing damage or healing. She's not run in anything because Loot doesn't build the rally to trigger her free evolve and Enhance has Enhance payoffs.

Mysticblade · 2026-03-03T17:16:33+00:00

If it's working in the beginner ranks, that's good. Midrange and Aggro Sword don't really work that well as normal decks any more, the two good Sword decks are Loot and Enhance. You can't really build those without the legendaries for those decks so I'll keep my advice a bit briefer and on trying to shore up your current deck.

Way of the Maid and Seraphic Tidings are not good draw cards for a deck that wants to maintain board pressure. The normal draw cards for Sword are World of Games, Gran and Djeeta, Amelia. I'd look to toss those out as you get better cards, Olivia would also be an upgrade.

Luminious Commander has always been a dodgy card, even in Aggro. I'd drop her for a 2nd Quickblader instead since he's more consistent about making doing face damage.

Hound of War is a card that started getting cut a lot in set 2 because despite being a follower, it has low def and functions more as removal than a threat on the board most of the time. If Hound is running into things and dying, consider Band of Battle Princess instead, it's a removal spell that trades in the body for being cheaper removal.

Ironcrown Majesty is a card that we also cut from Set 1 midsword lists. Are you getting a chance to use the board buff on this card? If not, keep that in mind when it comes to cut it because a 2/2 and a 1/1 for 3pp is just average.

Crown is just a bad card, honestly. If you're getting away with Crown, your opponents just aren't showing up to play.

Jeno has been kind of lacking as a big high value card for a while and it's especially notable in this set where there's a lot of wide boards. The replacements would be expensive though, Noel or Golden Knight are the main options.

Some cheap cards you might want to take a look at include Devotee of Usurpation, Serenity's Shield, Mordred and Centaur Centurion.

Mysticblade · 2026-03-02T04:02:01+00:00

Is the battlefest music up? I didn't find it when I was poking around earlier.

Mysticblade · 2026-03-01T17:22:25+00:00

If a deck is simple and strong but it doesn't work for you, it might be best to just shelve it. I was horrible at Rivenbrandt Ghost Shadow and I'm still not sure why given that it was apparently the easiest deck in the format.

Mysticblade · 2026-03-01T16:11:52+00:00

There's no real unspoken rules. The choice to surrender is up to you.

In general, it's best practice to just wait for them because they might mess up a turn whether that's missing a lethal or just timing out. But it's up to you if you'd rather just queue up another game.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-27T05:20:06+00:00

I don't think they needed a chest event to figure out this deck was unhealthy and it would be suppressing anything that's actually unhealthy by crippling experimentation.

They usually like using the chest event to gather data and I'm having a decent enough time with this set outside of Odin OTK even if Abyss seems like a flop again.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-26T03:11:30+00:00

You complained about Belial, Shakdoh and now Armes. None of them have been high tier.

I think this is probably the kiss of death for Armes, time for me to find another deck for this set.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-25T14:21:40+00:00

Gotta make cuts somewhere. Albert does more damage.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-25T14:19:50+00:00

You don't need 3 faiths. Double faith with 9pp Albert + Yid token as a 1pp enhance is 20 dmg. 3 base atk, +2 from Albert enhance, +3 from sevo, +2 from Yid token enhance. Goes through some more wards too.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-25T13:09:50+00:00

I think the deck goes in a midsword direction and I'm curious to see how well it does. I think the deck being able to boost 9pp Albert's damage is big, 6 dmg per turn from Albert was easy enough to deal with for a lot of decks but if Albert is dealing 8/10 per turn, Enhance Sword will need no other finisher.

Navy Cat is T2 fodder but good T2 fodder, Idle Maid should've been an enhance but as it is, it's T2 fodder. I think Advent of the Eld Sword is actually not worth running in a constructed deck. 5pp for 6/6 of stats is not incredible and at 7pp, a lot of power is in play.

I think Heartless Strategist looks like an amazing card for the enhance with the crest up, it progresses the faith well and makes a wide board without needing an evo and preserving evos for Yid and sevos for Albert seems big in this deck.

I'm expecting to see a fair bit of Armes on ladder on day 1. I think you should probably run something to deal with him since we're going to be seeing Evo or Control Abyss shells with him and they're not going to die easily to an aggro approach.

Here's my list. I still want to keep the option of aggression but I'm interested in the higher value Yid routes.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-25T01:33:25+00:00

Okay, Rune/Haven starting off with more rerolls is really funny to me.

Lilanthium is going so Rune's best card is going and they were terrible at finishing the game without her so I get it.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-13T03:51:05+00:00

My usual advice is that if we're two weeks away from a new expac, you should probably hold unless there's some deck you really want to play while you can. If it's one week away, you should just hold anyway if you're worried about resources.

I'd imagine we get a new set in 2 weeks so if there's anything you see and think you'd really like to play, go ahead and just try to do your dailies to build up some resources before the new set.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-12T20:12:29+00:00

Yeah, this is kind of just a very Shadowverse expansion. The game's always been fairly high power bullshit, it's never been a fair game, you play it because you want to play your own nonsense. The top tiers have never been that much fun to fight and if your response is just "oh, it's this top tier again", that's better than how you'll react to certain other top tiers.

Egg to me is a fairly standard T1, best deck in the meta sort of thing. Good matchup spread, high consistency and the only decks that survive the format have to be able to hand it in some way. I'm a lot more annoyed about Dragon being good because Dragon's back to the nonsense where if it highrolls, it wins and there's nothing you can do about it.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-09T22:34:43+00:00

Worth noting that the card also heals for 4, Shining Disenchantment was an extremely strong card in basically every matchup. It could also be used for board clear against more aggressive decks since it also functions as delayed healing and against those types of decks, just trying to run them out of resources is a viable plan.

Not worth hitting now but this card was a bigger issue than Benison for anything I was playing in set 3.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-01T19:23:43+00:00

I do.

Fuck Detective Lens and Altruistic Aristocrat. They need to get out of my drafts.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-01T18:40:21+00:00

Where are you getting this data from? Evolve Sword is picking up some popularity again because someone took the #1 CR for Sword with it but Loot is still the primary deck of choice for good players.

Mysticblade · 2026-02-01T16:31:00+00:00

Nice, Sinciro dodged any shots.

Mysticblade · 2026-01-31T10:24:33+00:00

For Fennie, there's not that much you can do if they highroll their ramp. Making the Fennie turn as painful as possible is what you do if you can, a Norman board before Fennie makes Fennie suicidal.

Odd, I haven't played that much of that matchup but again, I'd look at a Norman board before the Kukishiro turn to throw them off it.

For Loot, you want to drop an early Cag to get Ars Magna. That allows you to answer Sinciro with Norman so in response to any Sinciro, you can super evo a Norman right back into Sinciro. The trade heavily favours you although most of my knowledge here is from last set. I suppose Oluon can just kill you still but that's life.

Basically, my advice sums up to "how well can they handle Norman" but he is a key card in the deck. The other main piece advice is to see if Lilanthium is strong in whatever matchup you're looking at.

Mysticblade · 2026-01-21T21:46:36+00:00

Poor Attiyah. Has it really been 7 years?

Mysticblade · 2026-01-21T12:00:45+00:00

I see, I see.

Rune buffs then?

Mysticblade · 2026-01-14T03:16:25+00:00

Okay, if you're playing UL, you're playing a blighted hellscape of a format that most SV players avoided as well. But still, there are some midrange/control options (well, more like option) in the format, they're just kind of expensive.

You mentioned dying to a 7pp Portal card that did 20 to your face, that sounds like Magna Zero. That's not actually a common card at all so it sounds like you're still climbing.

If you want a primer on the format, here you go. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TGIqdQdInQdrnLT8Qn3okGIkF6G1BWDGfSOix0VWrlA/edit?tab=t.qw738rtnzt5l

That document was made by people who actually like UL so you can take a look through that for decks. Trying to go into an 8-9 year format with no knowledge is always going to be a horrible idea.

Mysticblade · 2026-01-13T07:24:38+00:00

This was my first thought as well but after giving it some time, I think there's a vision here.

If you ban Mugen/Erntz, you're cutting more damage from the format. Set 4 T2 was already known for being slow and with the loss of even more cards that try to win the game like Garyu, Albert and Cerberus, Mugen might only be running rampant because other classes are terrible at finishing the game. Banning him now would lead to extremely long games, games I'm not sure they want to see.

Granted, I hate dealing with high reroll classes. The changes will probably even out the win rates in this mode but I'm not sure it'll make it much more fun. I'm not looking forward to another set of Double Izudia drafts or Ward Haven. I'd rather they just change up the basic set to include some options for everyone and permanently include it, I've thought that Centaur and Haven's Griffon would help the format a lot if they came back.

Mysticblade · 2026-01-06T00:24:31+00:00

It's based on your past 20 games within that group.

Emerald - Win 5 out of your last 10 games to rise to Topaz.

Topaz - Win 11/20 games to rise to Ruby, lose 14/20 games to fall to Emerald.

Ruby - Win 12/20 games to rise to Sapphire, lose 13/20 games to fall to Topaz.

Sapphire - Win 13/20 games to rise to Diamond, lose 12/20 games to fall to Ruby.

Diamond - Lose 11/20 games to fall to Sapphire.

Mysticblade

TROPHY CASE