On Tuesday, November 29, 2016, Japanese developing company Cygames announced a new expansion for its hit collectible card game, Shadowverse. Titled "Rise of Bahamut", this expansion draws inspiration from a previous Cygames mobile card game called Rage of Bahamut. While Shadowverse players knew about the upcoming expansion due to an exclusive interview TechRaptor staff had with Cygames, exact details on the expansion weren't provided at the time. Our coverage of the previous spoilers from December 02 can be found here.
Today, December 06, 2016, Cygames tweeted out information on five new Rise of Bahamut cards from its English Shadowverse Twitter account. These cards were originally revealed earlier in the day on a Japanese Twitch stream. It's important to note that the abilities and stats on the cards shown thus far aren't set in stone and are subject to change the closer we get to release.
The first card is the Shadowcraft class, Legendary-rarity Nephthys, a 5/5 follower which costs eight play points to play. It has a Fanfare ability, which activates when the follower is played onto the board. When Fanfare activates, it randomly puts followers of different costs (excluding Nephthys) from your deck into play until you area is full. Then those followers are destroyed. Nephthys evolves into a 7/7 follower with no additional abilities.
Up next is Veteran Tamer, a Havencraft class, Bronze-rarity 2/3 follower which costs four play points to play and has the Fanfare ability of Fanfare: Summon a Beastly Vow amulet (the Beastly Vow amulet, in turn, has Countdown (2): Summon a Holyflame Tiger). When Veteran Tamer evolves, it becomes a 4/5 follower with no additional abilities.
The third and fourth cards from the Shadowverse Twitter account are inter-related, as one summons the other. Both are Neutral class, Silver-rarity 2/2 followers; the first is Gourmet Emperor Khaiza, who costs three play points to play into your area. He has the Fanfare ability of Fanfare: Put an Ultimate Carrot into your hand, and evolves into a 4/4 follower with no additional abilities.
The second of these two inter-related cards is, of course, the Ultimate Carrot, who costs two play points to play into your area and has the puts a copy of itself into the players hand when its Last Words ability activates. Ultimate Carrot evolves into a 4/4 follower with the same Last Words ability. Ultimate Carrot isn't represented by a card in your deck, and can only be played via the Fanfare ability of Gourmet Emperor Khaiza or the Last Words effects of another Ultimate Carrot
The final spoiled card for today from Rise of Bahamut is the Bloodcraft class, Gold-rarity spell Sadistic Night, which requires three play points to cast. This spell deals two damage to your leader, and six damage to an opponent's follower. Sadistic Night also has the new Enhance ability, which activates when you have the specified number of play points or more; the card will instead cost that many play points to cast, and the ability will activate. Sadistic Night's Enhance (7) summons a Beast Dominator.
The next round of Rise of Bahamut spoilers is due in the weekly edition of the Famitsū magazine on Thursday, December 08, 2016, although some parts of the magazine have already been leaked to the public. Due to no high-quality images of the cards existing at the time of writing this article, TechRaptor will report on these cards when the magazine releases proper.
Shadowverse is currently available free-to-play on Steam, as well as on Google Play and the App Store, with some minor optional microtransactions that can be avoided without any noticeable impact on gameplay experience.
Stay tuned to TechRaptor for more information on Rise of Bahamut and all things Shadowverse.
Quick Take
Here are my thoughts on the new revealed cards from Rise of Bahamut:- Nephthys: This card may be hard to fit into a Constructed deck, due to relying on an RNG effect. With the right Shadowcraft shell (such as followers with Last Words, or a way to quickly gain Shadows for Necromancy effects) it could be effective, but the high play cost and weak body make it a tough sell. Nephthys' Take Two value is similarly dubious, as its value will rely heavily on the other cards drafted into your deck.
- Veteran Tamer: Veteran Tamer won't likely see much use in Constructed, and that's due to Havencraft having plentiful strong cards and finely tuned decks. Where Veteran Tamer will shine is in Take Two, as it provides both a follower to pressure the opponent with and also an amulet that summons a powerful follower in two turns.
- Gourmet Emperor Khaiza and Ultimate Carrot: These cards are quite strong in both Constructed and Take Two. Gourmet Emperor Khaiza is a strong three point play that enables an infinite stream of Ultimate Carrots, allowing the player to trade with their opponents followers while still maintaining pressure. At two play points Ultimate Carrot is a bit slow; however, as it is a Neutral class card and has the ability to grind out aggro match-ups with the opponent means that they're sure to see quite a bit of play in both formats.
- Sadistic Night: The best way to evaluate this is to look at it with and without Enhance. Without Enhance, this is a strong removal spell that handles many possible threats, both unevolved and evolved. Two damage to the player's leader can be also relevant for activating Vengeance. The problem arises when trying to cast it for Enhance; Bloodcraft wants Vengeance active long before turn seven, and taking two further damage can be quite risky. This is, however, solid removal for Bloodcraft in Take Two.
