Howdy Shadowverse peeps!

I wanted to take the time to share this deck that I have been playing for the last few days. I call it “Tempo Grail”. Allow me to be the first to say that this is not a “secret tier 1” or “Tier 0”. It probably isn’t even tier 99, but damn if this deck isnt a blast to play and rewarding to win with!

General Concept

I wanted to be able to maintain control of the game and board presence as much as possible. In most other haven variations, it becomes difficult to defeat meta titans such as Midrange Shadow because you cannot constantly keep their boards clear all of the time, the tempo loss was too big when you would play a Themis’s Decree and then they immediately slam Eachtar right afterwards and you have to pray you have an answer for it or you just lose. The combination of Condelabra and Tarnished Grail allows you to be able to clear these boards while being able to have an obvious threat in your opponents face they is incredibly difficult to play around.

Another thought that was i wanted to constantly have cards coming to my hand and so I decided to use Uriel and Prism Priestess. They are bodies as well as search for amulets from your deck. This means I can draw a card and continue to have somewhat of a board presence.

What’s with your curve?! It’s only 1~4 until grail?

I did that because I wanted to always be able to do something in the early parts of the game. If you think about it, the higher costing cards you have in your hand in the beginning of the game, the higher the chances are you will brick and not be able to find the answer you need in the early game. So i kept it simple and this deck was the result.

Why Candelabra?

Simply put, the card is actually not bad! I wanted to find a deck that could play both it and Grail (Grail is my favorite card out of ToTG).

Tech Choices

Angelic Snipe: The hardest thing to deal with in shadow for me isn’t Eachtar. It is the skeletons! Using a board clear only for them to still have a board because of prince catacomb is by far one of the most frustrating things for me in ToTG. So because of that, I thought to myself “What exactly can i run that could help me vs the Skeletons?” At first, i thought of Angelic Barrage but I i didn’t like how it was performing. The problem with Barrage, it hit everything. Sometimes, i didn’t want it to hit everything, I only wanted it to hit one thing to reduce the amount of board presence my opponent hand. So i switched to snipe instead.

Snipe is really flexible and is surprisingly powerful if you know how to use it properly. Against the Shadow match up. Angelic snipe is probably the best card for it. Angelic Snipe is also very good vs Forest and Sword as well. Against Dragon, snipe can be used in combination with Priest of the Cudgel or Blackened Scripture to banish Ouroboros!

Forbidden Ritual: Although this one is pretty obvious, the primary function of ritual is to shut out shadow. However, it does serve different functions. This card is very good against Sword and Forest lists. Not to mention that it can help cut them off for a turn, preventing them from doing damage to you if you do not have candelabra in play.

Frog Cleric: The Eternal question i get about this deck is why i run frog cleric over something like Radiance Angel, Healing Angel or Rabbit Healer. All of those cards are very good at what they do, but frog cleric is much more flexible than all of them. I can play Frog cleric early as a tempo play and hardly feel the sting of it, or i can play it and heal if i need to help myself get out of those deadly ranges vs shadow. He also fits perfectly within my 1-4 curve so that is why he was chosen instead of the other cards I mentioned.

Why not Heavenly Aegis?

In none of my incarnations of this deck have i once considered putting in Aegis. There are several reasons for this

I wanted a budget friendly deck for people who wanted to try this list. For that, no legendaries. While Aegis is a good card, I wanted to reduce my chances of bricking with late game cards. I simply wanted to build a haven deck that did not rely on aegis whatsoever. If someone wants to put aegis in the deck, they may do so as that is their choice. Otherwise, Aegis is not required for this deck to work.

Mulligans

Priest of the cudgel(if going second)

Forbidden Ritual(if fighting Sword / Forest / Shadow)

Blackened Scripture

Tribunal of good and evil (If going first)

Sacred Plea

Angelic Snipe (vs sword / .Forest / Shadow)

Match ups.

Favorable

Aggro Shadow

Aggro and Midrange Sword

Tempo Forest

Aggro Dirt Rune

Even

Midrange Shadow

Tempo Runecraft

Unfavorable

Storm Ramp Dragon

Neutral Ramp Dragon

Dimensional Shift Rune

Playlist

Final Thoughts

This is not an easy deck to pilot and if you are expecting to rack up free wins, you are sorely mistaken. You will need to think through each of your turns to make the most out of all of this deck has to offer. I hope that you enjoy this deck as much as I have and I look forward to coming up with more decks like this in the future! Thanks for reading!

If you would like to chat with me about the deck or just join a really awesome community of people who are willing to help you with whatever you need in regards to shadowverse, please hit up our discord channel! https://discord.gg/fv8SaU9