Verdant Steel is an interesting set that is definitely worth considering when you are deciding which Shadowverse: Evolve booster packs to build your decks with, however it has a few flaws which need to be discussed.
As I mentioned in another review, I am one who used to play the shadowverse digital CCG, and I was a huge fan of the sets ‘Verdant Conflict’ and ‘Steel Rebellion’, however, despite this fact the physical production left me rather flat for a couple of reasons that i’ll explain shortly.
Verdant Steel is an interesting set that is definitely worth considering when you are deciding which Shadowverse: Evolve booster packs to build your decks with, however it has a few flaws which need to be discussed.
As I mentioned in another review, I am one who used to play the shadowverse digital CCG, and I was a huge fan of the sets ‘Verdant Conflict’ and ‘Steel Rebellion’, however, despite this fact the physical production left me rather flat for a couple of reasons that i’ll explain shortly.
Card art:
Let’s start with the visuals. Now as usual with Shadowverse, the visual design of the Verdant Steel cards is outstanding. There are some really pretty cards in this set, and all of the cards look at least aesthetically pleasing. Abysscraft as always feels well served, with Mono, Nicola and Doublame being three examples of some exceptionally nice looking card art. For Forestcraft there’s Forest Hermit and Primal Giant, Swordcraft gets Valse, I could go on. Regardless, whatever deck you favour, you’ll be getting some very pretty cards to go in it. (I Particularly like the Aether cards.) If there’s anything wrong with this set visually it’s only that the two themes that have been combined don’t greatly complement each other, one being based in steampunk magical machinery, and the other in natural magic and fairy tales, very nearly polar opposites. It does little to disrupt the aesthetics of the set of course, but the overall visual identity does suffer just a little.
The Cards:
While a lot of the cards in this set are pretty good, and can find a niche in a variety of decks, there is a little problem of synergy, especially with the ‘Steel Rebellion’ side of things. The fact that this is a mixed set, combining two series that each had unique internal synergies that don’t really work that well with existing cards it’s a little hard to actually get these cards to do what they are supposed to. For example, Mono, Garnet rebel. She’s practically the poster girl for Abysscraft in this set, and a fan favorite character, however if you manage to receive her in a pack, you might find it quite hard to use her abilities.
Mono requires you to have 5 ‘Machina’ tag followers on the table (A full board) to use her evolve, a bit of a stretch considering that there are only 8 distinct ‘machina’ cards for Abysscraft in the whole series, and two of those are spells so won’t be on the board anyway. You aren’t going to be activating any of the abilities that require ‘machina’ cards very often at all without much doubling up and heavy use of neutral cards. In my eyes this only gets worse when you realise that a lot of the cards included in this set don’t actually have synergy with *either* of the unique card types, Machina or Natura, and many are practically mundane.
The scarcity of cards that summon assembly droids is also a problem, whereas the abundance of cards that summon naterran great trees is almost silly, especially as you don’t actually get many great tree tokens at all. However if you can pull the themed synergies off, the effects are admittedly pretty good, which is something to consider.
Now that isn’t to say there is nothing of value in this set of course, in fact i’d recommend a lot of the cards for use. It *does* however make it harder to make a deck around the set’s unique mechanics, which is a shame. There’s still lots of goodness here for the casual or competitive player’s deck building though, and those mundane cards especially are worth a look, with the likes of Hellblaze Demon and Doting Dragoneer working well with a lot of cards from previous expansions.
Card Pack Value:
While you are sure to get a few pretty good cards in every pack of Verdant Steel, due to the aforementioned split of themes, it may not always be something you can use, or at least not something you can use *well*. Still, the consistency of the pull rates and the quality of the production mean that Verdant Steel is by no means bad value, especially for collectors. The ratios are fairly consistent, and in just the first 5 packs I found two legendary rarity cards. Not too bad all things considered. As usual, it’s better overall value and consistency to go for booster boxes, but if you don’t want to make that much of an investment or don’t have that much money to burn on trading cards, just buying a couple of packs off the (digital) shelf to see what you get isn’t a bad idea at all.
In Conclusion:
While Verdant Steel isn’t exactly the best expansion Shadowverse: Evolve has ever released, it’s still certainly a rock solid expansion with good value for money. The design themes and card synergies are often a little muddled and difficult to build into a deck, but there are some really solidly good cards in this set, meaning that if you bear with its foibles you can make some pretty good decks from Verdant Steel cards.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
68%
