The Three Themes of SE Decks

**Harakhte** · 04-02-2012, 02:46 PM

Some of you might remember me, I've been away for a while, but I still followed SE as closely as I could in that time and from this observation into the current stable card pool I've drawn one important (well, the only one on review here at least) conclusion about any form of SE deck.

Put quite simply, SE has only three real themes, or kinds, of decks, regardless of Human vs Shadow or Hero vs Hero considerations. These are Proactive, Reactive, and something we can call Balanced sitting in between the first two a little unsteadily. There have been lots of names for each of these themes, but in the final analysis of any consistently performing deck these various names all end up basically being a member of these three themes.

Proactive decks are often called aggro, rush, race, burn and so on. They aim to win by being high-tempo and high-efficiency as early as turn 1, compounding every minimal advantage they can gain by transitioning through the resource curve without sparing much or any deck space for powerful but high-cost cards and thus usually top out needing only 5 available resources to fulfill their win conditions. The handiest example, though not current, was the hugely popular Eladwen

deck before her Hero ability was changed back to targeting only allies, though Boris

, Amber

, Logan

, Majiya

and Elemental decks are also commonly built this way. The weakness of this theme is dependency on no small number of things, including but not limited to minimal deck size for consistency of starting hand, card draw engines/sources, securing and maintaining early board control, doing early damage without much concern for their own health total, being on the play rather than on the draw, and the use of 'accelerant' cards like Jeweler's Dream

to maximize resource efficiency. Also in many cases the standard Proactive deck has poor closing power, as with its focus on 'all in' play it doesn't expect a drawn out exchange so it doesn't often prepare to be in one, sort of like a boxer used to winning by KO in the first three rounds of a match who then runs out of stamina. Counters to this theme include some form of life renewal/extension, board wipes, multi-target burn, effective early ally/item/attachment removal and tempo stalls.

On the other side of the divide we have Reactive themed decks, which are SE's version of control/denial variants (but are not actually either of those if you have experience of them from other T/CCGs). These decks aim to 'come back' into a fight from the very beginning of a match, and are often the counter of choice to rampant Proactive decks in the meta. It is typified by its focus on a few powerful cards/abilities (Tidal Wave

, Supernova

, Nishaven

's ability, Energy Discharge, and so on) to regain lost early ground in a match all at once when a critical resource/shadow energy threshold has been reached at or around turn 5. Mages are interesting because they tend to work as Reactive at least as well Proactive, though it can be argued this is on a balance of Nishaven

and Gravebone vs Eladwen

and Majiya suiting each theme, respectively. The big Reactive players are Wulven and Priests, both of which have excellent mechanics for surviving and countering any plays an opponent might make, though Warriors, especially Ter Adun

, and Elementals have success as well. Hunters sometimes end up playing this style almost unintentionally, due to the utility of Soul Seeker and the timing of its combo with Rapid Fire

being able to be put into play. Strangely a number of the same weaknesses are shared with Proactive themed decks in that card draw is a priority, though in the case of Reactive decks it is necessary in order to have their key cards as early as possible while having the resources to cast them, and that a failure to draw these cards consistently while judging what can be safely sacrificed vs each match-up is as bad as a poor starting hand for Proactive decks, especially when a lot of Reactive decks run a bit larger than others. They are also very susceptible to strong early damage, item/attachment removal, ally disables/removal that ignores the big life totals on high-cost allies, and awareness of what their key plays will be and how to limit the effect they have on the match. On the other hand, most Reactive decks are very strong closers between fatties and ways to boost even their more meek allies with items like KIng's Pride, or negate a huge amount of damage with an Armor of Ages

or simply becoming untargetable Wulven-style, not to mention direct-damage burn or boosted weapon attacks. Counters can come from card swap via DR, removal that specifically targets high casting cost, avoiding playing certain kinds of cards that might only aid their strategy, but most of all from knowing how to play your own deck against each flavor of Reactive deck.

The third theme, loosely termed Balanced in this post because so few decks manage to fit exactly even between Proactive and Reactive, tries to combine the strengths and coincidentally avoid the pitfalls of either a straight Proactive or Reactive deck. It crossed my mind to try calling these decks Utility but it doesn't quite properly describe them when they work as intended. The well-crafted Balanced deck will be able to contest early board control, as well as trade hits early, but will include a number of high-cost closer type cards, as well as removal/disables that are viable early, mid or late. The example that pops into my mind first is the current Rogue (especially Lance

) decks, which scale exceedingly well from early to late game, as well as Banebow

and Zaladar

who have such great utility inherently. Dare I go on about Mages and Warriors again? The truth is almost any Hero can fit a Balanced theme, and it seems to be where the meta is heading at the competitive level since the card pool stabilized, though those active in the community know there are still a number of front-runners in Hero choice. The only real weaknesses of a good Balanced deck comes from those weaknesses inherent to the card pool it is built from, though fitting enough of each and every thing you might want to have while still being able to draw it might be considered the biggest flaw in choosing the middle road. It isn't often that a Balanced deck can carry 4 Shrieks and 4 LLN

for instance, so card pools weak in item removal will have extra difficulty vs items and so forth. Identifying which side of Proactive and Reactive each Balanced deck leans will give a great deal of insight into what is likely to show up in larger or smaller numbers, though assuming you have their exact numbers is never a safe thing to do. Purpose built Proactive and Reactive decks can counter specific Balanced decks, but sadly not all of them, though in my humble opinion I would give Priest & Mage Reactive decks the better chances over most Proactive decks. They simply have too many relevant threats to dismiss lightly, where Wulven Reactive has a "one-trick pony" quality to it that can be over-turned by good play. In fact, good play as well as good deck design is the best chance vs Balanced decks.

So, those are my observations and the analyses based upon them, and congratulations if you've read the whole thing. I appreciate constructive criticism and debate, but flame and troll elsewhere please (typing that feels so much like painting a target on this post). Lastly, I hope it was of some interest and use to those who do read it.

Cheers,
-Harakhte

**Airact** · 04-02-2012, 03:17 PM

My eyes are burning.

I'll come back once I have tried reading through this.

Edit: Ok I'm back.

It's a good read once you get used to your eyes burning the whole way through.

Regarding reactive decks: I can't say I have seen a lot of those in Shadow Era. Zhanna

, Victor and Moonstalker

are the only ones I can remember and none of those have seen much competitive use(MS probably the most and everybody knows why).

I agree on most points. I'm starting to fear the slow transition into mid-range dominant Shadow Era. I like heavy rushes and heavy controls way too much to give them up to mid-ranges although I do enjoy my Banebow

.

**Harakhte** · 04-02-2012, 04:11 PM

Just to clarify the reasoning behind the naming of the themes/tropes:

-Proactive decks make things happen from the very start of the game, typically getting to their win conditon as fast as possible regardless of opponent action.

-Reactive decks have a necessity to wait for some condition to resolve, most commonly a resource total and certain cards in hand but sometimes shadow energy total as well, before being able to assert a controlling influence on the game and seek their win condtion.

-Balanced is a catch-all for those decks sitting in between, or using, both the Proactive and Reactive mechanics, with the aim to seek a certain win condition from the start, but not the necessity to go 'all in' on it, as they have multiple options available to achieve the win at any stage of the game.

Cheers,
-Harakhte

**FarqTheOrc** · 04-02-2012, 09:42 PM

Hi harakhte and thx for your post.

I never really thought about it in depth but i guess i would have described shadow era decks as either early vs late, or ally vs allyless, etc. So may i ask where you came across the terms proactive and reactive? (just wondering)

Also i guess there is a 'wildcard' description for decks that fall outside those descriptions, for example a mill deck in 1.29, R.I.P., which i wouldnt really describe as proactive or reactive but more really just simply annoying.

**Harakhte** · 04-03-2012, 04:03 AM

They're generic terms for describing an active process, action vs reaction, or the 'style' of, in this case, the prevailing themes that SE decks are built with. I have a long history with CCGs and the amount of terminology accrued in that time can be truly immense. While numerous terms can be applied to SE most of it doesn't necessarily fit well enough given the base mechanics for the game to be universally understandable. Many players talk about early-game vs mid-game vs late-game, but those aren't thematic terms for decks, but for the stages the deck is aiming at performing in.

Saying "I want to build an early-game deck" is the same as saying "I want to build a fast burn deck" or "I am aiming for weenie rush" - the point of all three statements equals a Proactive stance when building and playing a deck. You are aiming at dictating how the game plays out by taking action and forcing your opponent to respond as best they can.

The Reactive theme is the opposite in that it isn't overly concerned with forcing action, it wants to survive and react correctly in order to clinch the win based on a certain few powerful cards/abilities that require time to get ready for (and a mill deck is a Reactive deck, in SE at least, by the way).

Balanced decks don't particularly aim full on at either end of the spectrum, though they do tend towards more early or late based on preference. The goal here is to affect the entire game by building a deck that can stand up to Proactive decks and at the same time stay even with and beat Reactive decks that typically perform best with high resources to cast high-cost cards. They carefully proportion threats and responses in their builds to be viable at any stage of the game, though not always successfully as doing so in 39 non-hero cards can be difficult.

What I aimed to accomplish with all this was to identify the most basic thematic concepts for SE decks, not enforce new terminology on the community, which is why I tried to use the most general terms for these themes. Maybe it will help someone view the way they view, build and play decks by recognizing that regardless of Shadow, Human, Class or Hero, the same basic core themes will not change, just the cards used to implement them.

Cheers,
-Harakhte