YMMV / Shadowverse

YMMV for the game

• Award Snub:
  • In 2017, a community poll was held to decide the next set of leader skins. Bloodcraft's winner wasn't an iconic gold/legendary card like Emeralda or Beast Dominator, but Dark General, an unremarkable bronze basic. A lot of the Western fanbase realized she won because her Japanese voice actress is the popular Kana Hanazawa, and were dissatisfied with this.
  • The 5th anniversary leader poll in 2021 was already met with a lot of outrage over the nominees, and many are sad to see that Illganeau, one of the most tragic main characters in the Rivayle arc, or Ceres, one of the most well-known Shadowcraft recurring characters, didn't even have the dignity of being nominated. When the results were announced and a majority of the winners were female again for at least the third year in a row (to the exclusion of favorites like Maiser and Iceschillendrig), both Japanese and Western players started pointing fingers at each other for the possible cause of the trend.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Why it was nicknamed Waifuverse at one point.
• Broken Base:
  • The anime and/or fanservice-laden art style is a touchy subject to bring up among fans. Is there too much sexualization in the character design, or are the people complaining about this just overreacting? Values Dissonance may be brought up in resulting arguments.
    • On that note, the censoring of certain card arts (when compared to their originals in Rage of Bahamut) spawned another debate. Some are completely opposed to any kind of censorship, others don't mind it if the editing wasn't sloppy, another camp doesn't care at all due to the subtlety of the censorship, etc. The argument reached new heights at the end of October 2020, when Cygames included a revision to the artwork of the cards in the first three packs to keep them in line for what would be used in the Switch product.
  • Every time balance changes ensue, there will always be a contention of opinions. Were the right cards hit? Were they nerfed in the right way? Will the reigning deck die or just get off with a slap on the wrist? Problematic cards may get a common consensus, but the less expected nerfs won't. Not helping matters is how many players equate "nerfed" to "rendered completely unplayable" due to how Hearthstone handled balance changes.
  • The Street Fighter leaders. People think they look out of place and want other leaders. It doesn't help that they were released so close to a crossover event with fellow Cygames title Granblue Fantasy and all they seem to be getting are emblems and sleeves.
    • During the Street Fighter collaboration event, players who were looking forward to the new leader skins were dismayed that said skins could only be purchased with real money, as opposed to the Rage of Bahamut leader skins which can be purchased either with real money or in-game currency.
  • The change in Arisa's English voice actress has garnered mixed receptions. Some fans feel that the new voice acting's Cute, but Cacophonic approach makes Arisa sound more childlike and sounded more grating and prefer the older voice actress (who sounded older, but maintained the upbeat and serious personality of Arisa). Others find the Arisa's new English voice acting to be appropriate for the Nature Hero and forest guardian theme to the character.
  • The English dub in general garnered mixed receptions from fans. Some of the voice acting (particularly Joe Zieja's take on Rowen^note Although his take on the character did slowly improve in the later story chapters, Tsubaki's second voice prior the reversal back to her old voice, Arisa's new voice acting as mentioned above, and Dream Rabbit's old voice acting) has garnered mixed to less favorable receptions. On the other hand, some of the English voice acting such as Brianna Knickerbocker as Luna ^note particularly the story mode in several of the Tear Jerker moments, Sean Chiplock as Belphomet ^note for being a gloriously hammy villain with an amazing Evil Laugh, Erica Lindbeck's Erika, Albert's baritone, Owlcat, and Vania are generally well-received and praised by fans.
  • The Wonderland Dreams expansion's push on Neutral cards garnered mixed reception from many players. Some feel that the push of Neutral synergy takes away the unique class identity. Two particular examples are Neutral Sword and Neutral Haven, where their original identities of their respective classes were downplayed mainly because the neutral card synergy they were given does the job better than the class cards they were given ^note Mainly because neutral Sword does way more than the class's original Commander/Officer synergy, while Neutral Haven opened up to a more tempo/aggro oriented playstyle that is simply better than the control-style mechanics Haven has as a class. Even Bloodcraft has lost its identity as a class with the neutral package for a while until the nerfs hit many of Neutral Blood's main cards. Others feel that the neutral package help open up to diverging and unique playstyles based on the neutral cards given, such as Neutral Forest and Neutral Rune. The only two classes that didn't get the bad reputation for their neutral synergy are Dragon and Shadow, but this is mainly because the neutral-related card synergy they were given were flatout bad.
  • Players were excited when Cygames first hosted a poll to determine alternate leaders for each class. They were not amused when they discovered that, as opposed to simply purchasing them like the other leaders, the alternate leaders would be obtained by pulling their respective card from packs, and cannot be crafted. To twist the knife a little more, an alternate leader card has a mere 0.3% chance of being obtained. Some player still maintain this anger towards the gacha mechanic that has plagued Japanese mobile games, while others had come to terms with it and note that it's not Bribing Your Way to Victory if it's purely cosmetic.
  • The concept of mini-expansions introduced at the third month of each expansion was met with mixed reception. At first, players were disgruntled with the fact that the cards introduced will require them to spend more resources on opening packs to acquire them, especially when those cards are Gold and Legendary cards that can become vital to a strong deck. After the first mini-expansion proved itself by providing the right cards for underperforming decks to flourish and shake up the meta, some people warmed up to it as it broke the monotony, while others maintain their dissatisfaction at a diluted card pool. This latter notion would be tempered much later, when the game added modified card packs that are more likely to yield the new cards from the mini-expansion, giving players a better shot at getting new additions without expending vials.
  • From late September to early October 2019, the dev team teased a "big announcement", with a site showing a countdown and updating with silhouettes of never-seen-before figures with each passing day. Many suspected it was new game content, ranging from balance changes to new cards or characters. When it was revealed to be the announcement of an anime adaptation, it's safe to say many were disappointed. The fact that it is meant to center around the card game itself rather than its in-game plot only added more fuel to the fire.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • In general, any deck archetype or combo used by tournament-winning players gets copied by a majority of the playerbase, trying to mimic or emulate the same strategies used by the professional players in their games. Players do this for the sake of having high winrates for easier Rank-ups and Daily Missions. It would then get to the point where most players would use that same archetype until "mirror matches" become prevalent. This allows Cygames to determine which deck archetypes are the most played, and judge whether the "win condition" or overpowered cards of these decks need balancing or Nerfs. Attempting to diminish this trope's presence is the justification of the mini-expansions in the third month of the season.
    • The prevalence of competitive decks is most visible whenever a Grand Prix (the game's own tournament mode) is active. Expect to see the game mode be dominated by the few reigning decks of the season, with an occasional rogue list trying to exploit their weaknesses. This issue got exacerbated after the game allowed players to view and copy tournament-winning decklists.
  • Aggro decks are significantly cheaper to build than most midrange or control decks. This accessibility, combined with the rate of quick-and-easy wins they yield, can lead to phases where they utterly dominate the ladder. The first few weeks after a new expansion's launch is most susceptible to this, as aggro can overwhelm experimental builds that are still trying to optimize themselves.
  • Crafting a Rotation deck can cost tens of thousands of vials due to the number of Legendary and Gold cards one needs, so to help ease a new player into ranked play, Cygames gave players the ability to choose a prebuilt deck (out of a few recipes) for free, with the drawback of the deck being entirely temporary cards that vanish once the next set launches. Since everyone gets access to this feature, expect to see the prebuilt lists almost everywhere shortly after the launch of a new set, and doubly so if a variation of a decklist happens to be very successful on the ladder.
  • The Custom Rotation GP allowed players to pit decks of old Rotation formats against new ones, so you'd expect to see players experiment with a lot of decks from bygone eras. However, one of the most popular Decks is Discard Dragon from the exact previous Rotation format, as it offers ramp, card filtering, uses Filene to delay combo decks, and puts out tanky wards that block opposing damage effects and hard removal. On top of that, because it's a recent deck, most players are bound to have the resources to build it in their collection, while older decks would need a lot of crafting for a new player to access.
• Demonic Spiders: Several cards can fall into this, and would feature a mixture of some of the following: good on-curve stats, resistance to removal, Storm, or the ability to end a game on their own in general. The reigning deck of any one format is prone to feature at least one such card, and players have to plan to not suddenly lose the game to it.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Chapters 5 and 6 of each Story Mode line (should you be playing from the very beginning) is where the game stops giving itself a handicap. The AI now starts at a full 20 defense, and it begins to play more proficiently and use evolutions more frequently.
  • A big spike occurs after Chapter 8 for the relevant characters (everyone except Eris). This is because the initial 8 chapters were around since the game's launch, balanced to be beatable by players who had just started out and have yet to accumulate a good collection. Chapters 9 onwards were added much later, and are tuned to challenge experienced players who have access to high-quality decks. It's after Chapter 9 that the AI just starts to outright cheat by creating decks that would be illegal for any human player that are capable of brutally unfair combos of cross-faction cards. The spike is worst in the latter half of the Morning Star arc, but slips back down into less unfair territory in the Guild Wars arc.
  • Once the player hits rank A0, they no longer earn winning streak bonus points, slowing their progression through the ranks.^note With the division between Rotation and Unlimited, you still will retain the winning streak bonus for the format where your rank is lower, up through to AA 3. It's also the point where they start encountering more competitive decks and competent players, and are forced to bring their best to win consistently.
  • Grand Prix mode presents a difficulty spike when you qualify for its finals. You only get one shot (as opposed to one free attempt per day and a few more if you can buy into extra attempts) and it's double elimination (formerly single), so losing one too many times, even to a bad matchup, will end your run. And given the stakes (especially in Group A where the rewards are much better), you'll be facing the strongest or most popular decks around.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Bellringer Angel's enthusiastic "Ding Dong!" has captured the hearts of Shadowverse players from both the English and Japanese fandoms, despite being So Okay, It's Average and not always warranting a spot in most decks. She's almost become an unofficial mascot for the game, and would get retrains as Shining Bellringer Angel and Guiding Bellringer Angel from later sets.
  • Among the introduced spotlight characters from the "Omen of the Ten" expansion pack, Galmieux (The Omen of Disdain) has the most online fan-arts than the other nine characters. Her popularity mainly stems from her gorgeous Fanservice design, her voice actors' performance from both the Japanese and English versions, and her lore-wise sadist characterization that seems to turn on many fans. Cygames has then shown signs of noticing her rise of popularity as the first monthly Card Emblem and Sleeve rewards after the expansion was no other than Galmieux. And when the new official Shadowverse trailers were released on June 20, 2019, Galmieux is seen representing the "Omen of the Ten" expansion characters. When the results for the 3rd Birthday Card Popularity Poll were released, Galmieux was indeed voted by fans to be the next Dragoncraft Leader, further cementing her status as a fan-favorite original Shadowverse character.
  • Much like in Granblue Fantasy, Vania is incredibly popular due to her being a loli vampire princess. Not to mention, her card effect is considered to be one of the best cards to use in many aggro Bloodcraft decks. In the English fandom, her English voice acting is considered to be one of the cutest voice acting in the game.
  • Some of the leaders from the first anniversary poll counts:
    • Albert, Levin Saber is relatively popular in both Japanese and English fandoms alike, mainly because of not only is Albert is a relatively strong card in many Swordcraft decks, but Hikaru Midorikawa's voice acting of Albert and the English baritone voice acting are well-liked within the fandom. In fact, in one of the Japanese popularity polls, Albert is voted the top leader for Swordcraft when Cygames announced that they are introducing new leaders for each class to celebrate the game's 1st anniversary.
    • Fairy Princess and Dark General (who were later given the official names, Aria and Exella respectfully) are happen to be popular due to both of them being voiced by Kana Hanazawa in the Japanese dub (especially in the case of the later which is considered Playing Against Type).
    • Imperial Dragoon happened to be the top picked character for Dragoncraft's leader because he is voiced by the Japanese voice actor of Seto Kaiba.
  • The 2nd anniversary poll results:
    • Whiteforst Dragonewt Filene, a card released in the Dawnbreak, Nightedge mini-expansion, is voted to be the most popular Dragoncraft leader because of her adorable character design with a cutesy child-like voice from her Japanese voice actress. Her versatility and practicality in terms of gameplay in various Dragoncraft decks also helps in her popularity as well.
    • After a massive tug of war between Toy Soldier and Orchis, Orchis was voted as the top choice for Portalcraft leader anyways thanks to her Sugar-and-Ice Personality, her voice actress, and her cameo appearance in the Granblue Fantasy anime.
    • Similarly, the Shadowcraft leader poll had a tug of war between Ceres and Aisha, both have very well designed in terms of gameplay and artwork. However, Aisha won out over Ceres, mainly due to her sexiness. The same thing can be said with Forestcraft's Cassiopeia due to the sexiness of her design and her also being a generally good card.
    • Darksaber Melissa ended up being the most voted leader for Swordcraft due her strong resemblance to Saber Alter form Fate/stay night, especially among the Fate fans who were disappointed that the Heaven's Feel promotion had Saber as a Dragoncraft leader instead of Swordcraft and wanted a proper "Saber" leader for Swordcraft. ^note The reason Saber was made a Dragoncraft leader in the promotion is because lore-wise, Saber has a dragon lineage, and her fighting style is akin to a Mighty Glacier in the Fate/series, which is fitting with Dragon's playstyle in Shadowverse.
    • Venomfang Medusa was voted as the top pick for Bloodcraft leader, mainly due to the cuteness of her design, and Unfortunate Implications with snakes.
  • Psychopomp Tour Guide, despite being a Bronze follower with a simple effect, sees popularity for her energetic voice acting and resemblance to Towa Tokoyami. Many rejoiced when she got her own leader skin.
• Fandom Rivalry: It's not unusual to see fans of Shadowverse and Hearthstone clash due to the similarity of the games' base mechanics. It doesn't help that many players of Shadowverse are former Hearthstone players who migrated from Hearthstone for various reasons, while some Hearthstone fans just can't get into the game due to the sheer amount of Fanservice involved.
• Fan Nickname: So many examples that it now has its own page.
• Friendly Fandoms: Quite a few:
  • Due to Cygames various cross promotion crossovers of other works, there are fans of Street Fighter and the Fate series who are fond of Shadowverse, as many of them have been promoted with characters as alternative leaders to several classes.
  • Fans of Rage of Bahamut and Granblue Fantasy also overlap with the Shadowverse fandom due to cards featuring characters from both games and being created by Cygames.
  • Thanks to a collaboration between Nintendo and Cygames with Dragalia Lost, there is also strong overlap with the Shadowverse fandom with Dragalia Lost fandom. In fact, there are fans that are hoping for a crossover event between the two games. And thanks to Nintendo's involvement, it also goes to the extent to other Nintendo's games, with Fire Emblem with being the most common one (due to the franchise featuring several dragons, knights, lords, mages, and priests that fit thematically with Shadowverse, and several of the card art of Fire Emblem Cipher can fit perfectly with Shadowverse's card art should there be a crossover expansion featuring Fire Emblem characters).
• Game-Breaker: Chances are if a card got nerfed in its past, it was being too good at its job. Many such cards are also High-Tier Scrappies — if that page records a nerf, the offending card is likely to classify under this trope too.
  • Of the infamously strong decks that have come and gone in the game, no deck is more absurd than Neutral Blood. It was so strong and popular that a lot of its games ended up being mirror matches. It's telling when one looks at a list of Neutral Blood in its prime and notices that, by the time the next expansion rolled out, eight different cards in its list had been nerfed to rein in its power.
  • Some say the strength of Neutral Blood laid in its powerful early game supplemented by the "Alice package," involving playing several good Neutral followers on curve followed by Alice to buff them if they were not answered at every opportunity. After Neutral Blood got nerfed off the ladder, the Alice package became the skeleton of Neutral Rune and then Neutral Haven in the subsequent months of the format before finally dying when Alice got nerfed. The Neutral support theme of Wonderland Dreams was agreed to be a bad move on the developers' part, as nearly every opponent having the same exact same opening plays regardless of what class they were got boring fast with the exception of Shadow and Dragon (mainly because the neutral synergy they recieved was pretty bad).
  • With the release of World Uprooted, Cygames accidentally pushed the Machina Forest archetype a bit too hard, with Damian, Drillarm Brawler providing both board clear and face damage, Ironglider Elf giving discounts to Machina followers along with a decent body, along with Natur Al'machinus reducing the costs of Machina cards by 3. Along with Robotic Bagworm, which fits the Machina Forest playstyle perfectly (many Machina cards get bonuses from playing another Machina follower in the same turn), the deck skyrocketed to a staggering 61.2% winrate and a 31.5% usage rate. Cygames had to nerf the deck on the second day after the expansion's launch.
  • Cross Craft is a game mode where players can mix and match cards from two crafts for their own deck, and it's enabled synergies beyond a single craft's capabilities that some cards had to be banned from the temporary format.
    • Shadow's incredible Zerg Rush strategies synergize too well with the Rally mechanics for Swordcraft. Erika, who gains power for each allied follower entering play, became a game finisher such that Cross Craft was being dominated by Rally Shadow-Sword decks, and became the first card to be banned from a constructed format.
    • Hozumi's Fanfare ability — trading out the rest of the board for the highest-cost cards in your deck, but only when you've played 4 or more cards before her — becomes ridiculously easy to pull off when combined with Portalcraft's 0-cost Puppets, and her Festive trait made it extremely easy to search for her and made for a consistent combo. Facing a big beefy board on turn 4 or 5 is nigh-impossible for most other decks in Cross Craft, leading to her being the second card to be banned.
• Genius Bonus: The non-standard stats of Erntz, Justice (11/8 base, 8/11 evolved) are tied to how the Justice arcana is assigned to either number 8 or 11 of the major arcana depending on the variant of deck you're using.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Of the main playable leaders available, Bloodcraft's Urias happens to be incredibly popular among the western fanbase due to his charming, charismatic, and polite personality for being a Blood Knight vampire as well as being honorable to the point he even calls out on the main antagonist of the storyline, Nexus. In Japan, he isn't unpopular as per say, but when it comes to Bloodcraft leaders, he's overshadowed by Vania and Exella in terms popularity (due to the former being incredibly adorable and the latter being voiced by a popular Japanese voice actress, Kana Hanazawa).
  • The western fanbase has an incredible fondness of Ridiculously Cute Critters as well. The most prominent example is Swordcraft's Bladed Hedgehog, which during the 2nd anniversary leader poll, is one of the options as a leader for Swordcraft. The Shadowverse subreddit exploded when Bladed Hedgehog is made an option as a leader for Swordcraft due to the uniqueness of having a Ridiculously Cute Critter that only talks with squeaks as a leader. Hedgehog's popularity is also assisted by him being a very practical card to use in midrange Sword. In Japan, however, Bladed Hedgehog's popularity is overshadowed by Darksaber Melissa, due to Melissa's uncanny resemblance to Saber Alter of Fate/stay night (although Bladed Hedgehog comes close to 2nd or 3rd in the Japanese polls).
    • Carbuncle, Immortal Jewel also has won the hearts of many western Shadowverse players or hoping for a Ridiculously Cute Critter as a playable leader in the third anniversary leader poll. Not helping the matter is Carbuncle himself is a relatively useful follower for many control-oriented and combo centric Forestcraft decks. In Japan, Carbuncle's popularity is overshadowed by Izudia, Omen of Unkilling.
• Goddamned Bats: Some cards are not that powerful on their own, but can become extremely stubborn due to self-resurrection or defense against removal. If ignored, they can get their share of chip damage on the enemy player or their followers.
• Growing the Beard: Due to fan feedback, Cygames began addressing rebalances to cards by nerfing the overpowered ones and buffing the niche cards in turn. At that point, the overview of the players toward the game became generally positive for having a developer that listens to its customers. Over the past years, more story chapters have also been introduced, with story arcs having better and longer writing compared to the first. Lastly, Shadowverse became open for CCG tournaments and competitions.
  • The Morning Star arc of Story Mode met lukewarm reception due to its tedious, uninteresting battles, repetitive story scenes that frequently required replaying the same moment as a different character, and its slow pace where not a whole lot interesting was really happening. For English-language players, the localization was rather subpar as well. Perceptions of the story mode quickly changed during the Guild War arc, which had a much better localization, a faster pace involving multiple interesting new characters scheming to achieve their goals, a ton of character development, and overall much more engaging writing. By the time Gears of Rebellion was released most issues people had with the story were gone.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • During the game's first year, there had been plenty of fan artworks that depict Mordecai bonding with Luna, showing that even though Mordecai is a Blood Knight, he can get along well with a child. In the Duelist of Eternity crossover event with Granblue, a part of the plot involves Luna accidentally encountering Mordecai. In their first meeting, the two had been genuinely friendly to one another. Mordecai then protects the young Necromancer from soldiers and even holds back the line to help the captain escape with Luna.
  • In relation to what's stated above, the Duelist of Eternity event allows the player to obtain Luna's keepsake doll as a weapon. However, what makes it heartwarming is that Granblue named the weapon "Luna's Friend". And it makes sense - Luna is looking for friends to accompany her on an adventure, and she always brings that doll around, as if to say that there is always something else (other than undead) who accompanies Luna from the start.
• High-Tier Scrappy: You're bound to see some overly strong decks and strategies dominate formats. See here for more details.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Timeworn Mage Levi's quote, "I'm just a mage who's as old as dirt," is made funnier when Master Mage Levi (the younger version of the aforementioned card) was introduced in the Wonderland Dreams expansion, who is designed specifically for Dirt Rune decks. His evolve line, "It's just like back in the old days!" resonates even more considering that Master Mage Levi could do what Timeworn Mage Levi does and more without even needing an evolve.
  • Illya as a Havencraft leader is made hilarious when players notice that Havencraft has access to Tarnished Grail. For those who are familiar with Fate/Zero, the Holy Grail was actually corrupted.
    • Even more hilarious when the player uses Gilgamesh to finish off the Havencraft player using Illya leader. This is because this is exactly what happened to her in Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works with regards to a particular villain with the same namesake as the card.
• Ho Yay:
  • Urias' flashbacks with Balthazar drip with this, at least from Urias' part.
  • Erika is pretty much a Love Confession away from confirming Official Couple status with the Princess. Her dedication to the Princess obviously extends far beyond a strictly formal relationship, and the way she describes their relationship has strikingly intimate undertones.
• I Knew It!: Some fans were quick to point out that Maisha happens to be one of the major antagonists in the Guild Wars story arc, noting there isn't much characterization of her alongside with various Foreshadowing from many of the characters in the Guild Wars story arc (in combination with her very suspicious Nice Girl personality). The Altersphere expansion featured various characters from the Guild Wars story arc as playable cards, but Maisha missing as a playable card until the Altersphere mini-expansion where she is featured as a Portalcraft card also adds hints about her role as the villain.
• It Was His Sled: When the "Brigade of the Sky" expansion was released, a lot of Shadowverse players were spoiled with the reveal that Cagliostro is basically "a man's soul inside a cute girl's body", by the Granblue players no less.
• Junk Rare: As expected with any Collectible Card Game. In fact, there are some Gold or Legendary cards that are often liquefied for vials on sight simply because they are either too situational or have a debilitating drawback.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The English dub for this game is considered either So Okay, It's Average at best, or really below average when compared to the Japnaese voice acting. Most anime fans would only play the English dub of this game because of Brianna Knickerbocker voicing Luna, which is a case of Playing with Character Type.
• Les Yay: Both Arisa/Losaria, and Erika/Princess, are relationships dripping with lesbian subtext.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Some archetypes will either be overshadowed or underdeveloped and fall into this. See here for examples.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Rowen's English voice makes him sound really awkward. Combined with Dragoncraft's previous track record of being Overshadowed by Awesome and he became the butt of many fans' jokes. This became downplayed with Tempest of the Gods giving Dragoncraft powerful new cards, but then Double Subverted when an update at the end of May nerfed several of Dragons cards to take it down a notch (without completely destroying Dragon's power, mind you), which put Rowen back in this trope. There is no middle ground for him.
  • For all his significance as the Omen of Silence, Rulenye and his archetype is especially bad at locking down the opponent. Every time a new card that removes enemy abilities is revealed, you can bet someone will make a joke at his expense.
  • Illganeau not only gets a tragic storyline in-game, but her representative card got nerfed so hard she fell out of relevance, she didn't even make the 5th anniversary leader poll (unlike most of the other Rivayle characters), and even Zecilwensche snatched away hopes of being a Battle Pass leader! Poor girl can't catch a break in-universe and out. She eventually got a leader skin alongside the rest of the unreleased Rivayle characters by the 6th anniversary, though.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Stop bullying Luna!" ^Explanation In the game's early days, Shadowcraft was overshadowed by Havencraft since the latter has great access to the former's Achilles' Heel. This gets depicted as Luna being bullied by Eris; her status as The Woobie in the story only served to reinforce the meme. The meme has since faded out of use as Shadowcraft received stronger cards, but it resurfaces from time to time any time Shadowcraft falls to low win and play rates; the character depicted bullying Luna will change to reflect the reigning class.
  • Hamsa is no mere duck. ^Explanation Based on Hamsa's own line when he is summoned, "I'm no mere duck!" A few fringe combos (see also Lethal Joke Character on the main page) have allowed him to be surprisingly powerful. Some claim that Hamsa secretly gives the player the power of luck to win games. This got reinforced in February 2017, where Hamsa sleeves were obtainable as ranked score rewards.
  • "Cygames' Armpit Fetish"^Explanation A common thing that's noticed in most, if not all, IPs that Cygames has made, is the abundance of Fanservice that focuses on the characters' armpits regardless of their gender or fictional race. It has led to fans making compilations of armpits, or joking that this particular form of fanservice is the fetish of the company's art department. Nonetheless, fans of their games generally just go along with it though, with fanartists even giving an emphasis on the "pits" just like the official versions. This phrase has seen a resurgence in the late 2010's from the Gateway Series cases of their games, such as Dragalia Lost and Granblue Fantasy Versus.
  • Latham's mouth ^Explanation Related to the infamous Latham leader's idle animation where he always has his mouth always open (see Narm trope below). When his card is used in the deck (which is considered a below average card), some players question why the Latham sleeve isn't used (and vice versa when the sleeve is used, but not the card)
  • *gasp* ^Explanation Refers to one of the possible emotes by old Arisa's English voice actress, which highlight the charm of Arisa's old voice actress when compared to the new voice acting for Arisa in the dub.
  • Rowen's smile ^Explanation Refers to this photoshopped image from a particular Imageboard. Initially, this joke was intended to further his Memetic Loser status, especially at the time when Dragoncraft only had mediocre upcoming cards revealed. When Tempest of the Gods released and Dragoncraft's new additions were found to be incredibly powerful, the use of this image was flipped on his head, now indicating Rowen enjoying the massive buff. The meme has ascended when official Shadowverse social media began using it as their display image, and a Treasure Trove event even features Rowen in a triumphant smile while pumping his fist, which is not the exact same smile but looks too close to be ignored.
  • Sky Knights! Prepare for battle! ^Explanation The Catchphrase of Albert on summon. His strength as a finisher led to him being very ubiquitous in ranked play, and western players got used to the baritone of the voice actor and they liked it. Ever since, most of Albert's English lines were treated as memes, sexual innuendos, or used in chain comment reactions whenever the character is being discussed in a Cygames-related western fandom including Granblue Fantasy and Dragalia Lost (games which some Shadowverse players also branched into). Many of his other lines were treated the same, no thanks to the assistance of a Shrek copypasta:
    • A little blood won't stop me!
    • Saber Strike! Saber Strike!
  • Meme deck ^Explanation Refers to either completely suboptimal decks (i.e. J.O. Dragon mentioned in the trivia page) or to very clunky combo decks focused around something Awesome, but Impractical which wins once in a while.
  • Land of blunders, land of marbles! ^Explanation A mutation of Alice's play line, used to mock the excessive Power Creep in Wonderland Dreams and the numerous nerfs needed to put its cards back in line.
  • KMR Laugh ^Explanation One of the memes shared between the Shadowverse and Granblue Fantasy fandoms is an image macro of Producer Yuito "KMR" Kimura laughing with his eyes closed. Fans usually bring up the image on several Shadowverse-related news, announcements, or card rebalance posts on the game's social media platforms, referring to KMR whom they associate with such decisions and updates. There's also the "Smiling KMR" variant where he faces forward instead, and the "Sasuga KMR" phrase when fans praise the news updates made to the game, again associating him.
  • Eachtar's head can't be taken. ^Explanation Based off his on-play voice line, used to illustrate the fact that he had managed to avoid getting nerfed through three balance changes despite being a notoriously strong card. At the end of August 2017, the nerf that Eachtar received made this a Discredited Meme, though the reversion of the nerf in July 2018 after rotating out brought the meme new life, especially when midrange Shadow began to dominate the Unlimited meta.
  • Salaryman Tanaka's 10-minute games ^Explanation Shadowverse, being a mobile game, has its design team aim to keep games short. This general design decision has led to a number of decks that end in high-power burst damage that very few players can do about. These include but aren't limited to OTK Roach in its prime, Starforged-era Aggro Sword, and OTK Darkfeast Bat. Any discussion of such finishers will lead to sarcastic remarks over the games needing to fit within an everyman's commute or lunch break.
  • "What happens when the maintenance is over?" "You didn't know? That's when the maintenance begins.◊" ^Explanation Borrowed from Fate/Grand Order, and used to mock subsequent maintenance after a major update due to technical difficulties. Initially used for the Rise of Bahamut launch, mocking the temporary closure of Ranked play, and how Nephthys remained in extended maintenance. Hits new heights with the launch of Chronogenesis after unstable servers led to upwards of seven bursts of maintenance in a row.
  • Elta, Lord of Misplays ^Explanation Wandering Bard Elta, while evolved, prevents fanfares from activating. He's so rarely played that players tend to forget what he does. This has lead to plenty of awkward moments with people playing cards only to realize too late that their supposed game changing fanfare never activated.
  • Legendary Fighter ^Explanation Legendary Fighter is just Fighter with a more manly build. Players were quick to mock the very name of the follower due to the redundancy of his name and the difficulty in making the most of him.
    • Legendary Sword Commander ^Explanation Another card with a similarly uninspired name that is the basis of mockery.
  • ____verse ^Explanation A common Fan Nickname for the game as a whole, replacing the front half of the name with any term that depicts the dominant deck at the moment. It started with swapping "Shadow" to the names of other playable classes ("Forestverse", "Havenverse", etc.), and extrapolated to "Firstverse", "Aggroverse", etc.
  • "Sled On Cagliosled" ^Explanation A phrase which originated from the Twitter community of Granblue Fantasy, based on a post using Cagliostro's April Fools skin Cagliosled attached with this phrase, which resulted in comment chains. With the release of the "Brigade of the Sky" expansion in this game and Cagliostro as a leader, those who play Granblue took this opportunity to share a meme with Shadowverse... and it worked!
    • "____ On Caglio____" ^Explanation A lesser-known variation of the above phrase, which was used in artworks depicting Cagliostro. Depending on the artwork's context, one would choose a word and insert "On Caglio" between two instances of the word, such as "Spray On Cagliospray". Similar to Cagliosled, this may result in comment chains.
  • [Swordcraft card] nerfed from 7pp to 8 ^Explanation Swordcraft in Rotation has a history of their power plays crowding the 8pp slot. Formerly strong cards like Arthur and Blazing Lion Admiral also got nerfed from 7pp to 8pp. Even Chromatic Duel's Enhance effect got nudged from 6 to 8. People are quick to mock this practice, predicting any good 7pp Sword card to be nerfed to 8 at a moment's notice, whether a justifiable action or not.
  • Anything regarding Zecilwensche ^Explanation His refusal to stay dead and his hamminess, especially in his Japanese voice acting, makes him a Fountain of Memes for the Japanese fans. Things only got more intense when he, over any other Rivayle character, was revealed as a Battle Pass leader skin. The Japanese paragraph pictured is the moment when he goes Laughing Mad.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Multiple:
  • "A new world is our desire!" Uttered by Dark Angel Olivia, who completely refills your evolution points and allows you to stage a late-game comeback or seal your opponent's fate.
  • "Golly, it's chilly here!" whenever Snowmen are summoned. And, in earlier times, because they are summoned en masse and one at a time, the line is often heard overlapping itself, resulting in "Golly it's— Golly it's— Golly it's—" until the board is filled.^note Now, they're all summoned together so the line only plays once. Unlike Ghosts, however, the goofy voice acting makes the whole situation less grating and more hilarious.
  • Harnessed Flame and Harnessed Glass are difficult to keep on the field due to their weak bodies, but once they fuse into Flame and Glass, your success (and opponent's following demise) is heralded with "We are the void. We are the fury. Let the world be one."
  • "Go Bloodkin!" Uttered by Vania, Vampire Princess whenever the player summons Forest Bats, either by her own evolution ability or other card effects (like Summon Bloodkin, Queen Vampire's fanfare, or Veight's clash effect). Fans also agree this is some of the cutest voice acting in the game.
  • "Time to go a little wild!" Cerberus in Shadowverse is a pigtailed girl with hand puppets, and she's a staple of many Shadowcraft decks because she's three cards in one: In addition to getting a 3/3 body on the board, you get two spells, Mimi and Coco, and even they get their own voice acting when you play them ("It's the pits for you! Ruff!" and "Tear to shreds! Arrr!").
  • Haven players who have managed to hold out long enough to complete their Enstatued Seraph's Instant-Win Condition are rewarded with "And so our prayers become victory!" and their opponent vanishing in a pillar of light. That is, if the opponent doesn't concede first.
  • Loki's instrument in his art is not just for show. His entry line and effect has him playing an awesome electric guitar riff!
  • "This machine shall weave your fate" Artifact-based Portalcraft players rejoice at these words because now they can start to play an endless wave of followers thanks to Deus Ex Machina.
  • If you've successfully fulfilled the tricky Invocation effect of Prophetess of Creation, her arrival is heralded by "The day of prophecy has arrived." Of course, you're more likely to notice her stunning entrance animation and indestructible 20/20 body.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cornelius being really aloof and viewing his son as little more than an experiment is not too out of line for an abusive father, but raising his recently departed wife as his undead soldier right before his son's eyes would erase any doubt over why Lyelth hates him so much.
• Narm:
  • Latham, one of the alternate Swordcraft leaders, constantly has his mouth open in his idle animation. The goofiness of this did not go unnoticed by the players.
  • The voice acting for several cards, especially in English, can go into So Bad, It's Good territory. For instance, Dream Rabbit had No Indoor Voice until his lines were redone to sound less grating.
  • When Rowen transforms into his Black Dragon form to fight the giant shade near the end of the campaign, they create the sounds of the Black Dragon's roaring by getting his voice actor to simply do his best roar sound. Without any voice modulation, he just ends up sounding ridiculous, especially when compared against the animalistic snarling of the shades. Oddly, they briefly switch to a more convincing monster roar sound as soon as the giant shade is defeated, before going back to the lame impressions again.
• Narm Charm: Some of the voice acting, especially the English ones, can get pretty silly at times, but that often ends up giving them a lot of their charm. The whooping serving of ham really helps in that regard.
• Pandering to the Base: Most cards featured in the Brigade of the Sky expansion are the fan-favorite or Breakout Characters from Granblue Fantasy.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Each expansion introduces new cards that may have this effect, pushing underplayed archetypes or entire crafts out of their rut and into the limelight, if only for a few days post-release. Nerfs to oppressive decks and problematic cards can also allow the formerly oppressed decks to contend with the rest.
  • On 25th April 2018, Cygames implemented balance changes that left players confused — including a Balance Buff to the formerly impractical Corpselord of Woe. Formerly a 4/4 that needed 6 Shadows to automatically evolve, Corpselord now stands as a 5/4 that needs 4 Shadows to automatically evolve. While he's still a far cry from a top-tier follower in the likes of Eachtar or Aisha, the changes have certainly nudged him from "useless" to "decent".
• The Scrappy: Erika got a lot of hate for her actions in the Guild Wars chapter, where she was a combative Jerkass who was all too willing to turn her blade on her former allies as a first resort rather than simply talking to them about why she thinks Countersolari is justified in their actions. (To her credit, she does feel guilty about this in the Seeds of Conflict chapter.)
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Ambush was initially glossed over due to it applying only to weak followers and its protective effects disappearing once the follower attacks. However, later sets printed potent cards protected by Ambush, and players started to complain of their inability to deal with them barring planting Ward followers and hoping it forces a trade. It's telling that Ambush is a very rare mechanic and its more recent appearances only apply the effect for a turn so that the player cannot sit on and buff up an untouchable follower.
  • Runecraft's cost-reducing Spellboost mechanics can sometimes lead to them getting away with playing at least 3 followers that have a base pp of 5 or more on turn 5 if they get exceptionally lucky. A quick glance at the hatred for Daria and Dimension Shift easily illustrates how loathed the mechanic is; Runecraft's other archetypes are usually better-received.
  • As part of the 12 million downloads celebration, chests were randomly rewarded for winning matches. However, 1) the chest was announced at the beginning of the match and it's lost if you lose, 2) it's player specific rather than game specific, so players don't fight over the chest, 3) you can only get chests from competitive ranked games, on top of needing to have won some matches prior before even seeing the chest, and 4) chest rewards are randomized. This got many players up in arms about the whole design of the event, ranging from frustration over increased pressure to win in a highly competitive environment, and getting less-desired rewards on the off chance they do win a chest.
    • That said, Cygames went and ironed out one of the causes of frustration in the event, allowing players who have lost a match with a chest to simply try for the same chest again in the following match until they've won it, as opposed to needing to start a new winning streak after losing a chest to an unfortunate loss. A revisit to that event after Christmas in 2018 also allowed the player to have a chance of seeing a chest even if they've been on a losing streak, reducing the effort needed to grind for chests.
  • Few players are fond of the means of getting leader cards. These are alternate arts of popular cards which, when obtained, also unlock themselves as an alternate leader for their class on top of a special emblem and card sleeve. However, they cannot be crafted, and the chance of obtaining one in a pack is incredibly small — lower than that of other legendary cards. Stories abound where players have opened hundreds of packs (even going as far as to spend large amounts of actual money) without getting even a single copy of a leader card they were after. The frustrations have been abated after the introduction of the Pack Point system, but the steep cost of 400 packs to redeem a leader skin means that you still have to work for it — you're only given the solace that such a huge investment will never be for nought.
• Special Effect Failure: The tip of Rowen's spear fades out as it's normally too long to fit into the frame. But when his sprite position is shifted around, like to reflect him collapsed on the ground, the faded tip is plain for all to see.
• Tear Jerker: The Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel collab introduces alternate art cards based on characters from the anime, complete with new lore flavor text. The lore for Berserker are part of Illya's last words from Unlimited Blade Works after Berserker's ill-fated battle against Gilgamesh, and the evolved text from the start of that same battle.
  • Similarily, the evolved lore for Saber Alter is what Shirou said after the "bring the knife down" choice in the original Visual Novel.
  • In the main story, the entirety of Luna's storyline is a Tear Jerker because her parents were murdered trying to protect her from a burglar.
  • Illganeau's backstory is a terribly tragic one. Born with a weak heart that caused her no end of grief, she learns that her sister's magical talent was the cause of her condition. However, her family remained supportive through all of this, and when she finds her calling, she and her entire family was murdered shortly after. She goes about in her half-Wretch state for a while, seeking revenge on her killer, until she made the connection that her sister gave up her life to sustain Illganeau's, and draws the conclusion that she was her sister's killer. She undergoes a big breakdown at this revelation.
  • The climax of the Fate's Trigger chapters is wrought with tragedy as Zecilwenshe kills Baron and manipulates Maiser to take his own life. Both Bunny and Selena are struck by grief as their reasons to live are taken from them — Bunny at least has Arisa to console her and direct her rage at Icey, but Selena shoots herself after losing Maiser. In a short span of time, three protagonists are killed off, which is a stark contrast to the previous arcs where most of the named characters see their arcs through to the end. The arc even has a downer ending as Arisa's body is stolen by Iceschillendrig to rule over what would become Vellsar.
  • The Shadows Over Vellsar set features a lot of returning characters, with twists in their aesthetic and card design as if corrupted into a dark form. Anne and Grea, who have an incredibly strong Pseudo-Romantic Friendship that has been fuelled by Mysteria Friends, make a return, and under the "corrupted" aesthetic of the set, the two strongest individuals within Mysteria Academy are crossing swords, ripping the academy (and your own deck) apart with each blow. If you look into their flavor text, Grea's enacted on a fit of jealousy and betrayed Anna, leaving her completely heartbroken as she renounces their friendship.
• That One Achievement:
  • A series of permanent missions/achievements require you to get perfect 5-win streaks in Take Two Mode. While it can be possible in theory with proper knowledge of the cards, what actually makes it difficult is that in Take Two, you cannot use your own decks and must randomly choose among 3 given classes, with each card of your deck coming from a draft system - You are given two pairs of cards, choose one pair and discard the other. Do this 15 times to make a deck for that Take Two campaign only. So it's all up to the Random Number God to decide whether you get an excellent deck or a terrible one, while pitting you against opponents who may have better decks and draws than you. A simple defeat can invalidate your current run's attempt. The first of this series requires you to go 5-0 three times, but the challenge does not stop there, as you reveal more of the series that requires you to perform this feat many more times. The last of the rewards is at twenty 5-0 runs.
  • The Shadowverse anime Quest Mode event uses the anime characters as opponents. One of Luca's special objectives is to defeat him using the Last Words effect of his Dark Emperor signature card, which deals 5 damage to both leaders. Thing is, that card is nearly impossible to destroy — it takes no effect damage, can't be directly destroyed by effects, and if you engage it in combat it inflicts 3 damage to the follower it's fighting so you can't chuck a series of Rush followers to chip it down. Also, Luca has been infamously reluctant to play the card, so sometimes you can find yourself just stalling to try and bait him into playing it, only to land in an awkward position that prevents you from achieving the objective.
• That One Attack: As what is mentioned in the That One Boss entry below, chapters after the Nexus boss fight will have the AI making use of cards from all classes, leading to certain combinations below (which may be fun in theory, but can never be executed by the player)
  • Nephthys summoning copies of Mordecai and Leonidas, activating their Last Words effects, making the unkillable Mordecai even more durable.
  • The Black Dragon of Malediction has a deck which combines Dragonsong Flute with a lot of Fairies, making his hand full of 4-3 followers with Rush – This ensures that your toughest followers can be easily countered, and the Black Dragon's board almost full at all times. Though you can "outplay" him if you manage to destroy the three copies of Dragonsong Flute before he fills his hand with Fairies... or if RNG favors you and he did not draw Dragonsong Flute after plenty of turns.
  • Luka Megurine is the last boss of the Chain Battle bonus mode, and while you would be given several perks to offset her advantage, one of her perks allows her to summon a random low-cost follower from her deck and evolve it for free if she has Wrath enabled. The kicker is that she can use this on Mono, even though she wouldn't have any Machina followers or any Alpha Mode to telegraph it. Mono granting Storm to whatever she's going to play next can immediately turn the tides on the player, if not outright end their run.
• That One Boss:
  • Nexus, the opponent in Chapter 8 of the Forestcraft Story path, uses an illegal deck that has cards from all classes, resulting in otherwise impossible combos that can easily overwhelm the player, especially if they have been going through Story Mode with little modifications from the default deck. And it's just the first of many bosses to use such a deck.
  • Quest Mode is a unique collab event that allows the player to challenge collab-AI opponents to earn rewards. Bonus objectives impose additional restrictions for greater returns. While the standard opponents use low- to mid- strength decks that are reasonable despite being illegal, there is a special opponent who can only be defeated once per day, awards more quest points, but is straight-up overpowered.
    • The first iteration is Omniscient Kaiser, who uses an illegal deck filled with overpowered tokens. While she only has single copies of each card, Kaiser has an uncanny ability to draw the right cards consistently. If that's not enough, from turn 5 onwards, Kaiser gains a random special effect ranging from free card draw to free healing or damage, and if you manage to hold her off until long enough, on turn 10 she will get her own card in her hand and play it, causing a big swing in life totals (provided you don't immediately lose) and creating a monstrous threat you need to deal with. Defeating her normally tends to take a fair bit of luck — but accomplishing the bonus objectives as well^note Defeat without using evolves, defeat by turn 8, defeat with a deck full of singleton cards will involve a lot of retries.
    • The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls second iteration of Quest Mode has its Gold Pina Colata which is almost downright unfair. From its third turn it starts getting random amulets or worse yet, Rivayle Maneuver vehicles, which are deadly Tokens that have no right showing up on-board that early. They have great stats, strong effects, and it would take a lot of effort to take them out as soon as turn 4 or 5. But if you hold out the golden cat mascot starts generating never-before-seen amulets — golden versions of the Rivaylan buff amulets — one gives +5/+5, another gives +4/+0 and Storm and another gives +2/+6, Ward, and indestructiblity to effects. Gold Pina can literally pull lethal on you out of thin air or suddenly bring your progress to a screeching halt.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: One of the common complaints for the sudden decision since Tempest of the Gods to change the voice actors of many previous cards, especially if the players and fans favored the previous voice acting than the current.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Some of the visual effects in animated cards, like ripple effects, are simply gorgeous. Other cards have particularly stunning summon or attack animations. A special mention goes to the various trailers for the new expansions that not only have gotten better with each new one released, but are downright gorgeous to behold and especially when taking into consideration that all of it uses the original card art in the animations.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The Starforged Legends expansion was seen as this. After three months of the dominance of Neutral-oriented decks in Wonderland Dreams, the cards introduced in Starforged Legends expansion were seen as an expansion of re-establishing unique class and trait identities that had long been forgotten (particularly for Swordcraft's Commander/Officer synergy and Forestcraft's identity as a combo class), on top of legendary cards that were not as blatantly overpowered as those in the past couple sets. Combined with the nerf to Alice's buffs to the Neutral package on September 2017, the Starforged Legends expansion was seen as a way to opening up different and diverging playstyles for each class.
  • The introduction to Rotation format in the Chronogenesis expansion was this, mainly because the Rotation format only allows players to use cards from the latest five expansions, thus allowing a more dynamic and diverse meta as well as reinforcing class strengths and new mechanics for existing classes. The Rotation format was seen as a welcoming edition for control players as well, mainly because two combo decks that prey on control decks, Dimension Shift and OTK Roach, would be rotated out in Rotation, along with many aggro cards from Standard and Darkness Evolved expansions that wouldn't be available in Rotation.
  • A portion of the playerbase first learned about Cygames and Shadowverse thanks to the global Steam release. Upon knowing of a highly-popular JRPG called Granblue Fantasy, these players also picked that game up, and some even took a break from Shadowverse so they have more time for Granblue. (The painful metagame of Shadowverse at the time also didn't help matters) During those times, there were a lot of "Returning Player" posts where a former Shadowverse player returns into the game, eager to know the changes to the meta. When Brigade of the Sky launched, many of those who migrated into Granblue returned to the card game, thanks to the shared characters featured by the expansion. It goes to the point where some players admit that they play both games at manageable times.
• The Woobie:
  • Luna, once her backstory is revealed through the later chapters of her Story Mode.
  • Zoe, Queen of Goldenia sounds like she's on the verge of tears. Her flavour text showing that she has constant bad luck doesn't help.
  • The focal characters of the Ametsuchi Inn arc all have tragic pasts that they were forced to abandon upon arrival at the Inn. Once they recover their painful memories, it's hard not to feel bad for them.
  • Itsurugi's fateful showdown with Taketsumi in the climax of the Empyrean Inn arc show that they still acknowledge each other as partners, despite everything that happened between them. Taketsumi is eventually felled, and Itsurugi can't help but weep for him.
• Woolseyism: As expected with any game that depicts skeletons, the Chinese version of the game has many of Shadowcraft's skeletons completely censored or changed.
  • Luna's parents were changed from being ghostly skeletons to hooded ghosts covered in flowers. This actually adds more symbolism to Luna's character, as much of her storyline involves her inability to cope with her parent's deaths and the trauma she endured of witnessing her parents being murdered by a burglar.
  • Shadowcraft's most notable follower, Mordecai the Duelist, gained a Cool Helmet that masks his bony visage and impressed many players.

YMMV for the anime

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In episode 27, Alice gets picked up by a group of her fans, is separated from Kai, and is transported to the ruins housing the Shadowcraft legendary card. The fans promptly leave, and no further comment is made about their abrupt appearance and exit.
• Cliché Storm: The Shadowverse anime draws criticism for playing straight many tropes done by several other card game anime.
• Memetic Mutation
  • Shadoba tanoshii!^Explanation The catchphrase used by the protagonist Hiro, literally meaning "Shadowverse is fun"; It's said extremely often in the anime, much of it at inappropriate moments, and is now used as an ironic echo throughout the fanbase.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • In Champion's Battle, Hiro is given more personality now that he doesn't have the Plot Armor from the anime adaptation. When he's not the Invincible Hero, the video game gets to show that he can cheerfully and gracefully accept any loss he takes, which makes his enjoyment of the card game more genuine. He's even shown to be addicted to the card game to the detriment of his life, and he undergoes some Character Development and takes a little time off playing to tend to his sick grandfather.
  • Hiro returns in episode 53 of Flame, now a little more mellowed-out. When the haughty Mikado continues bragging about how he's better than the "talentless", Hiro bruises his ego by revealing his canonically near-unbroken win streak, and then proceeds to trounce him in the next episode.
• Shocking Moments: Portalcraft was subject to mockery for not being featured at all in the anime's promotional material. Cut to episode 23, where Leon and his Shadow Knights test the abilities of the main cast using the traditional Artifact Portalcraft archetype. Bear in mind the main cast is using cards with power levels scaled to those of the game's first three expansions; this scenario can easily showcase how decks from the game's early days would contend with Chronogenesis.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The first anime was generally regarded as So OK, It's Average at best and a Cliché Storm at worst, but Flame is almost universally seen as a massive improvement. Not only is the main cast more interesting than their predecessors, such as replacing Invincible Hero Hiro with the more humbled and fallible Light, but the character decks used throughout feature more unique cards and archetypes, as opposed to the first anime which for the most part featured cards from the first few sets with a few anime originals scattered throughout. Even the appearances from the old cast are generally well regarded for showing their Character Development from the first series and making them feel less generic as a result.