Shadowverse Evolve Master
patreon
Skybound Dragons: Ramp Dragon Guide
🕑 Added 2025-11-14 06:44:47 +0000 UTCWith the release of Skybound Dragons and the buff to Liu Feng in the second half of Heirs of the Omen, Dragon is well positioned in the current metagame and a great tournament pick with few poor matchups.
In my own words, it’s a deck of low time investment, high returns. You might be able to get more out of a different deck by grinding tens or hundreds of hours, but with Ramp Dragon, you can just read my guide, play a few games, and get a great win rate anyways.
After maining Dragon for Set 2/3, where it was a rather poor class, I’m happy with where it landed for Set 4. I was able to climb to GM this season with an 85% Diamond Group score. I am currently in the Ultimate Tier mostly through just playing my dailies (chest event was quite a grind…) I believe I could climb more and to BEYOND rank, but I opted to push out a Youtube Video and write this guide instead, as my time is rather limited and I will be extremely busy soon with preparation for Fusion World Nationals.
Decklist
Notably, I will include two different decklists, which I think are both very strong. One is my original list, which uses 3 Odins. The other is a popular Japanese list which completely cuts Odin. I think both are valid and target different metas. Without Odin, I think certain matchups become extremely difficult to win, like Haven and Control Portal in particular. This guide will work for either build, so give them both a try and see what works for you.
Dragon Sign: The most basic form of ramp. Unlike Liu Feng, can be played on curve and ramp immediately. Against aggro decks, you will likely opt to play a follower on turn 3, but against all other decks, it’s usually correct to play this on turn 3 if you have a followup 5pp card. In general, I do not recommend coining this out on turn 2, it is rarely correct.
Genesis Dragon: Your giga-reach that represents 12 damage with Super Evo. Notably, if your opponent has low-pressure, it’s usually correct to cash in the damage immediately, as your other storm options, such as Garyu/Forte/Azrafit are often able to push damage through wards, whereas Genesis Dragon usually cannot. Note that this card does not require Super Evo, so given the option, it’s usually better to use a regular evo if pushing damage rather than a super evo. One scenario that can come up is that if you only have one super evo, you push with this card first without evolving it, then seal the game with the Super evo on Garyu/Azrafit.
Garyu: Insane when played ahead of curve. It’s really hard for a lot of decks to react to the Super Evo of this card, as it effectively places 3 huge-statted followers while clearing the opponent’s. Worthwhile to note that it is acceptable to play this card for tempo without using evolve against a number of decks in the meta, especially against empty board or when you haven’t unlocked Super Evo. Since you only have 2 super evo points anyway, it’s a good way of conserving it for a bigger play later on. I will usually consider holding off on using Super Evo Garyu against decks like Haven, if I’m not getting a lot of value off the evo. Another thing to note is that sometimes, it’s better to swing with the Silver Dragon first and then Super Evo afterwards to apply a barrier to it. This is good against cards like Jeanne, for instance.
Azrafit: Basically, this card lets you get lethal through wards, and in an emergency, clears otherwise impossible boards. Ideally, you want to have a super evo, otherwise the card only has 1 health, and your burn damage to enemy leader is locked to only three. Combos with Galmieux crest, making it easy to get around 8 damage onto enemy leader with it. You usually want to play this card as your finisher, as your other options may be stopped by wards.
Liu Feng: 3pp 3/3 ramp with evo. Generally self-explanatory, it’s especially good when going second. Keep in mind that it auto-evos after overflow, and that it has synergies with Ocean Rider and itself at 6pp (manual evo Liu Feng to get access to overflow effects)
Ocean Rider: Exceptional in the early game and late game. It helps you protect your face, but in some matchups, can help you snowball chip damage, thereby protecting your face, pressuring the opponent, and making it easier to kill them later. Post overflow, the value for this card is rather insane, as it gives you two megalorcas instead of just one. Very common to combo ramp at 6pp with Ocean Rider to immediately get value off two Orcas.
Neptune: A new addition to the deck. Mainly good against aggressive decks like Sword and Puppet, buying you at least one turn, if not more. It’s not that great vs control decks, but even then, it spits out three bodies, so it’s not the worst. Since we only run 1 copy, it can’t really brick us, even in the matchups where it’s not as good.
Odin: With how the meta has developed, it’s important to run three copies of this. Enables us to race other decks, is necessary as a low committal storm option against Control decks, as well as setting up two-turn lethals. Obviously insane against Wilbert as well.
Lyria: 1/1 barrier is a surprisingly strong statline for a 2pp follower. I like tempoing this out against Sword early, as they run a high density of 1 health followers, and we really don’t care if they play a 2pp 1/2 follower, especially when we can potentially punish this with any megalorca generator. Obviously, the main reason we play this is because of its enhance effect. For only 1pp in the late game, it tutors our entire high-end, which means that this card is playable both in the early game and the late game, and improves consistency in the end game, as we’re typically happy to draw any of our high-end curve, especially at the ratios I landed on in the final construction (that is, we will never draw more than 1 Genesis/Neptune/Azrafit, which is great).
Galmieux: To be honest, this card often feels like a brick, but even so, I believe that we have no choice but to run this card, simply because of its versatility. There have been countless games where I have secured lethal using this card’s 7pp enhance effect for storm, which in and of itself, makes it worth consideration.
You should also be familiar with how to use the 0-cost spell, as well as Galm’s 3 damage ping conditions. It’s annoying when you have no choice but to rely on RNG to clear an early game board, but even so, there’s simply no other card at the 5pp range with evo that does what Galm can do, except maybe Merman, which tends to scale worse into late game, while not providing us with a strong crest.
We also have some interesting combos at 10pp, for example, commonly you’ll play 3pp Liu Feng, auto-evo, trade into a follower, get a 0pp token, then use the token to force Galm to ping the remaining ward of 4 or less health. Also, don’t be afraid to use the 7pp storm to simply trade board, sometimes this can be correct, as it’s saving us an evo point and bridging us to a higher tempo play.
Call of the Megalorca: One of the best 2-drops in the game, 2/2 rush is just insane in the context of what Dragon wants to accomplish, and lets us protect our face while opting for favourable trades. Has some overflow synergies with itself and Neptune, worth keeping at the back of your mind.
Filene: Obvious 3x staple since release. It’s one of your few deterrents to your opponent slamming 3/3s on you (Abyss, Portal and Sword), works well with Call of the Megalorca to prevent them from using their 2/2 to trade into your Filene as well. Although not so common, its evo effect to deal 1 damage can sometimes come in handy early game, whilst its overflow token is very strong and can wipe an entire board with an evo point + 5pp. Notably, Filene combos very well with Galmieux (almost certainly by design), and it is fine to play Filene out for tempo late game to get the token in spell, so you can clear boards with 3pp on demand (without Galm, you’d lose the option to evo Filene to get the ping damage to use Filene’s token effectively).
Wilnas: A very strong addition to Ramp Dragon. Yes, people are more prepared for this card than before, but that doesn’t change the fact that if your opponent can’t out this, they lose the game. This can force your opponent to make very inefficient plays, which you’re still happy with. Ideally, you want to play this at 7pp after ramping, so they can’t use Odin as an efficient response. It’s also just a very strong payoff after ramping and taking damage, as it clears 3 followers on the board, and demands an answer or the opponent takes 10 damage to face, which often leads to you getting a free turn of development the turn afterwards or outright lethal.
Zooey: Third form of ramp is finally here. Basically, curve it out on 5pp and you skip to 7. Although it feels bad to have to evo this to clear, it’s not really that different from using Liu Feng to evo + trade and not even have the body left over, so it’s fine. Also has a 10pp effect which gives it storm (so sometimes you just lethal with this) and has a last ditch effort to become invulnerable but go to 1 max HP. This is pretty relevant against Sword in particular, but many other decks have a lot of counterplay to this, especially if you didn’t chunk them to a low enough HP range to lethal through wards/healing. That said, you can chain Zooeys sometimes as well, I also recommend holding last evo point for your actual finisher, rather than the Zooey.
Seasoned Merman: A very powerful 5pp tempo play. Against decks that struggle to deal with wide boards, I recommend evolving this to gain +4/4 in stats on board. It’s also just a generically good follow-up to turn 3 Dragon Sign and is one of the few outs to things like Zwei.
Forte: Classic 6pp 5 damage to face. Due to the intimidate effect, it makes it very awkward for opponents to deal with, often locking your opponent into suboptimal plays. However, it’s risky to throw Forte into an existing board, as if they do clear it, they will just trade damage with you. I like playing Forte at later stages of the game, it comboes well with Galm’s crest or auto-evo Liu Feng at 9pp for instance, as you can use it to clear the board. Ultimately, you need to assess what type of outs the opponent’s deck actually has access to before dropping this.
Ferocious Flame: A popular choice in some deck lists. It’s a great consistency tool that helps you find your game plan later in the game. Occasionally, you’ll get some great tempo value by shooting off things like Octrice in the early game. It also comboes well with cards that typically have issues with going face, like Forte/Galm, allowing you to clear board and not take reprisal. The issue I find is that if you use this card early, you end up running out of cards in hand quite quickly
Gilnelese: A tech option that some builds run. It’s very powerful early game to control tempo and heal up. It’s also a neutral card, meaning it is not searched by cards like Ferocious Flame. It’s worth noting that on turn 10, it can also get us a 5 damage burn token, but vs most matchups, it’s not going to come up.
How to use the coin:
The general guideline for using the coin is to evaluate your next few turns in advance. Dragon is a simplistic deck, there are no combos you really need to consider, most of your turns consist of playing 1 or 2 cards, so it is easy to think about what your next few turns will look like.
As mentioned previously, it is rarely correct to coin out Dragon Sign. This is because it skips you from 2pp -> 4pp, but this is quite weak for Dragon, as the only good follow-up is Gran and Djeeta, which in our current iteration, we no longer use.
In most cases, you will use Dragon Sign on turn 3 without expending coin, jumping you to 5pp. On turn 5, you will rarely use coin, unless forced to contest board (such as Liu Feng + Ocean Rider). If you ramp at 5pp, you will be at 7pp the following turn. You will have the option of coining out Garyu, which against certain decks is quite acceptable. Ideally, you would do this against decks that will struggle to clear 3 big bodies (as Garyu himself is 5/5 and there will also be a 4/5 ward), so against decks like Abyss, it’s a solid play. Otherwise, you can feel free to play however you like (Liu Feng + Galm, Lyrial + Wilnas, etc).
If you have only ramped once, your ideal 6pp turn will be Wilnas with coin vs most decks. This will clear a majority of boards in the game while disrupting their game plan (as clearing Wilnas will become their primary focus). In addition, common punishes like Odin will be unavailable for the opponent at this juncture.
For the second coin of the game, a similar principle is applied. You need to consider your next few turns and how you intend to use your super evos. In this regard, you do need to consider your Lyrial pool as well, as sometimes, you may need to “gamble” on your hit. I also urge you to consider the situations where you need the coin to threaten lethal with Genesis Dragon, and, specifically, whether or not you might regret coining out Azrifit if it locks you out from a Genesis the next turn.
Game plan
There are a few game plans you should look out for in the early game, dependent on your hand and matchup:
The go-first Dragon Sign curve
The ideal curve against most decks is the “Dragon Sign” curve. In other words, going from 3->5pp via Dragon Sign, and then gaining access to cards like Merman to stabilise board, or Zooey to jump to 7pp (if going second, Liu Feng is an alternative). Of course, from 7pp onwards, almost all of your cards are live, which is where you need to take advantage of your pp advantage – first by stabilising board, then by pressuring their face.
Going first usually gives you more leeway with going double ramp as well, mainly because there’s usually not much else you can do at 5pp with no evo point anyways, so you’re often forced into it anyways. After this point, you’ll have taken heaps of chip damage, but you can stabilise with your high-drops and force them to respond to board – especially because they won’t have access to cards like Odin yet.
The go-first early game tempo curve
Generally speaking, Dragon’s early game is not that bad when it’s not ramping. Opening a 2 drop and then Ocean Rider on turn 3 can push quite a decent amount of chip damage while protecting your own face. Filene on turn 2 locks them out from coining out a 3/3, and if they choose to play a 2/2, you can use either Call of the Orca or Ocean Rider to ensure 2 to face.
Often, though, you may find yourself fizzling out at turn 4, which will cap your aggressive potential, but that’s okay, since you’ll probably have pushed around 4 damage while protecting your own health total.
The issue with this curve is that you do still need to ramp AT LEAST once. That said, it’s not a big problem when you do so, whether it’s turn 4 Dragon Sign or turn 5 Zooey/Liu Feng. Afterwards, you go into your standard game plan. You won’t have a large max play point lead, but this curve keeps you the most healthy and opens up earlier lethal opportunities.
The go-second tempo curve
Typically, this curve works best when you have Liu Feng for the turn 4 evolve. Compared to the go-first version, you want to have something along the lines of turn 1 coin out a 2-drop, turn 2 Orca, turn 3 Orca, turn 4 Liu Feng evolve. This curve is much worse without Liu Feng, as you will find it very difficult to find a timing to ramp. Dragon Sign on 4 is okay if you opened everything other than Liu Feng, but it gives up your board lead and only pushes you to 6pp, which is a weak point for this curve.
Ideally, your 6pp will be a combo of Dragon Sign/Liu Feng/Ocean Rider, though depending on your build, a 5pp with Ferocious Flame is pretty good too. After you cross this point, the game plays out as normal
The go-second Dragon Sign curve
Against non-aggressive decks, you can take it easy and play turn 3 Dragon Sign without any worries. This will set you up for a turn 6 Wilnas coin, which is very, very strong.
Against aggro decks, like Sword or Puppet, your ideal way of playing Dragon Sign is coin out a 2pp card, then play a 2pp card on turn 2, then Dragon Sign. This makes you take the least amount of chip damage.
Of course, there’s also the double ramp curve, which I only recommend against slower decks or if your hand has no other real direction. Most of the time, the criteria for this is either Neptune or Wilnas, and even then, it’s dependent on matchup and board state.
Matchups
Sword – Slightly favoured
Dragon – 50-50 if mirror, favoured if Cocytus OTK or Fennie
Evo Abyss – Favoured
Mode Abyss – Slightly Favoured
Puppet – Even
Control Portal – With 3x Odin: Slightly unfavoured. With no Odin: Unfavoured
Roach Forest – Favoured
Haven – With 3x Odin: Even, without Odin: Unfavoured
Spellboost Rune – Favoured
Dirt Rune – Favoured
Sword – slightly favoured
Originally, I thought this matchup was completely unwinnable, but after revising the decklist and play style, it became increasingly more winnable, to the point where I’d even consider us favoured.
Going first, you want to mulligan for a 2-drop, Ocean Rider, and, ideally, one form of ramp. In general, if you don’t have a 2-drop, it’s better to mulligan away ramp, as you only need it for turn 5. Missing your early curve is very rough, as you take too much chip damage, making it possible for Sword to ignore your plays and all in you.
Ramp option is “okay” going first. Turn 2 2-cost into Dragon Sign on 3 into Merman is a perfectly acceptable keep. However, missing even one component will lead to taking a very large amount of face damage.
Going second, you want to mulligan for 2x 2-costs and Liu Feng with the aim to coin out your 2-cost on turn 1. This will save you an incredible amount of health and, usually, control over the board. Sword’s most powerful tempo cheats are turn 1 Quickblader and turn 3 Valse. However, their 2-drops are generally understatted, with them being limited to 2/1s and 1/2s respectively.
In both cases, Lyrial is a good 2-drop vs Sword. Although it doesn’t contest their 1/2 very well, you’re happy if they play it as it can be killed by orcas anyway, while deterring them from playing their 2/1. She also trades into t1 Quickblader, which is always nice too. If it sticks on the board, it can contribute to taking down cards like Octrice.
Going first, don’t be afraid to drop Liu Feng on turn 3 or 4 if it’s your only option. Generally speaking, against Sword, you only really need to ramp once, and Turn 5 is not too late for the first Ramp, Zooey being a good option in most cases.
I typically do not recommend rushing into Dragon Sign on turn 3 when you can instead develop and contest the board. Going first, it’s usually better to slam ocean rider than it is to play Dragon Oracle. The exception is when you have the direct connection to Merman or Zooey -> Wilnas.
After the early game, your gameplan is reasonably straightforward – stabilise and force the opponent to divert attention to your board rather than going face. Garyu is exceptional at this, as the only real out they have to him is Sinciro (which they’ll use at some point no matter what anyways). Wilnas is good if you can drop him before they have access to Odin. Cards like Garyu help us chip their overall health total, and it’s our goal to either run them out of evo points or to put them in a position where they have to make defensive plays to try and prevent our lethal options.
Notably, your lose condition is usually tied to how much chip damage you took early game. Usually, Sword’s win condition is tied to Sinciro (+ Octrice token if they have it), into something like Odin for lethal. This only really works for them if they know there’s no fear of reprisal from you, hence why having a high hp count makes a huge difference.
To illustrate, if they Sinciro you for 8 damage, dropping you to, let’s say, 10 hp, then your response can easily be a Garyu to push 5 damage to his face, potentially dropping him to 12 hp. Now they have to consider healing because if not, they potentially die to Genesis Dragon evo. Conversely, if your hp was at 7hp, you risk dying instantly to Odin, which limits your range of plays. In other words, a low health total constricts your range of movements, which is why it’s so important to control the early game vs Sword.
The other component is that Zooey prevents Sword from getting a 2-turn lethal pattern. In previous expansions, if they went face with the expectation that you can’t heal enough to escape lethal the following turn, they must now deal with the problem that Zooey forcibly buys you an extra turn, more if you can chain her. In addition, Sword has limited Ward potential, and they frequently cannot protect their own face while storming yours, meaning you chip them for 5 damage and set up your own 2-turn lethal.
Last, the inclusion of Neptune allows for a significant amount of healing (4 on her own), while being capable of clearing all boards except those involving Valse. Sword’s burst damage and board clear is heavily reliant on having access to evo points, so simply by healing up, you can run them low on gas, to the point where they can no longer kill you.
In order to do well against sword, just remember to control the early game and be familiar with Sword’s range of lethal patterns. Things like Sinicro being 8 (12 with Octrice), Albert 12 (7 through ward with super evo), Odin 7, etc. This will help you know when you need to be defensive vs when you can safely tempo board and have safety nets like Neptune or 10 Zooey to protect yourself.
Dirt Rune – Favoured
I’ve tried the tempo mulligan and the hard mull for ramp mulligans respectively, and my final position is that hard mulliganing for ramp is superior.
The way I see this matchup is that despite Dirt having a lot of removal, a lot of it is tied to Dirt or evo expenditure. In addition, they have trouble closing the game outside of setting up Lilanthim ahead of time, so you can take chip damage and it will hardly matter.
Although they can almost certainly clear your board every time, it’s never “free” for them. Their most flexible removal options can only be used so many times until their hand runs out of efficient combinations to out your board. By ramping, you’re able to put out threats which come out too early for their removal curve to efficiently out. For example, if you have evo’d Wilnas on the board on turn 5 while they’re stuck on 5pp, they’re not going to have great outs to it. Especially since the turn after, you just drop another big follower, and then another, and then another.
The key cards to play around are as follows:
Don’t let them get free Normans off, and make sure that you can actually deal with a Norman that drops 2x Guardian Golem. If your play gives them a perfect Norman evo, then it’s quite possible your play is wrong, and you should search for a different line. A good example of locking out Norman is playing something like Forte/Wilnas the turn prior. They cannot play Norman while outing Forte/WIlnas/Garyu/Neptune etc
Don’t let them get perfect Lilanthim angles. The range of efficient plays they have is very low prior to 8pp. They will struggle to clear your Garyu if you drop it before they can Lilanthim, meaning that’s the turn you can usually force out a non-Lilanthim super evo. If you can force out their second super evo, they lose access to their otk, because they’ll no longer be able to super evo her from 5/5 to clear board.
Going wide is usually good vs Lilanthim. Their max clear is 3 cards, sometimes you can go super wide with Orcas, which will make them hesitate to drop Lilanthim or burn super evo, especially if they’re staring down 3-4 unanswered damage + potential storm the next turn
Keep track of their Earth Sigil count. Lilanthim is not a threat if they don’t have enough Sigils to protect her from your super evos
Similar principles apply even if you don’t ramp early, the main difference is that you get a better early game for a less abusable mid/late game. Dirt Rune has few tempo cheats prior to turn 4, their first few turns are literally limited to 2/2s or a 2pp 4 damage spell. This means that you can actually take control of the board by coining out your 2pp cards, or using Ocean Rider (which even if they can clear your 2/2, they’ll take the 1 chip damage after). This means you can put some early pressure on their life.
You still need to ramp at least once for your main late game tools to come online in time, but without double ramp, it’s slightly harder to abuse Dirt Rune, though it’s still fine imo.
Spellboost Rune - Favoured
It’s similar to Dirt Rune as a matchup, except you need to always be cognizant of Anne & Grea. Ramping is generally strong in this matchup, as going wide with Garyu will almost always require them to fire back with their own super evo (outside of highrolling multiple wind blast/william). Once they’re out of super evos, the game is literally over, as they have no win condition afterward.
For that reason, it’s generally better to just dominate the board rather than rushing towards cards like Forte, which are, sadly, easily outted by a literal 1pp spell (wind blast).
Ramp Dragon Mirror – Even
Mulligan: 2-drops, Zooey, 3-drop (going first, after 2-drop is secured), Liu Feng (going second)
In my experience, I get the best results in this matchup by controlling an early board. Having a turn 2 play is essential, if one player misses their turn 2 and the other doesn’t, it’s usually a ridiculous lead. A 2/2 that hits their face three times is more damage than a Forte!
For this reason, I like to hold off on playing first Dragon Sign when I can tempo out. Going first, it’s totally fine to just go wider rather than playing Dragon Sign. Since the only real tempo cheat that matters is Merman anyways, so if you don’t have that, it’s not even worth considering ramping imo.
Going first, Turn 5 Zooey being your first ramp is perfectly fine in this matchup. You only really need to ramp once in this matchup anyways.
Wilnas is very interesting. You should assume that a majority of Dragon players are running Wilnas, so I’d be very cautious about dropping first Wilnas without having an out in hand. There’s nothing more backbreaking than Wilnas killing Wilnas and then not having an out.
First Garyu is usually a large advantage as well. Where possible, aim to have barrier on your Silver Dragon (unless they have Galm active, then it doesn’t matter). The thing about Garyu is that it doesn’t out Garyu! Even if the barrier is gone, the second Garyu player still has to trade their 4/5 storm into the 5/4! By the way, in 90% of situations, you must clear all followers of their Garyu or you will lose the game shortly afterward. For this reason, you must always be cognizant of the possibility of them dropping Garyu, and, naturally, how you intend to out it.
Ensure that you consider and seal off their most obvious plays:
Don’t let them get free Odin swings to your face (unless you have Neptune or similar punishes in hand)
Try to keep outs for Wilnas wherever it makes sense
You can prevent Garyu by playing intimidate followers, as it’s generally impossible for them to clear while playing Garyu
You can prevent Odin punishes by playing 2+ followers on board; even a 2/2 can be a deterrent from them playing Odin, as even if they get 4 (+ evo) damage on you with Odin, they’re taking minimum 2 damage from your board, so the play isn’t even that good for them
Genesis Dragon can be sealed off by having any ward on the field
Be wary of Galm crest, it can allow for otherwise impossible clears from the opponent
Against other variants of Dragon, they typically have to allocate a portion of their deck to weak tempo plays like Fennie etc. The best way to deal with them is to continuously pressure them, with Garyu in particular being exceptionally difficult for them to out.
Against the newly popularised Evo Dragon, I think your win rate depends on how many Odins you run. The thing is, we do not win a protracted game state against Evo Dragon, they never run out of resources and they can go wide once they have their Super Evo engine stacked. So all we can really do is to continuously pump out boards that test them for answers. If they miss some combination of healing and removal, you can often snowball that to a win.
Evo Abyss (Favoured)/Mode Abyss (slightly favoured)
Mulligan: Filene (going second), Liu Feng (Second), Dragon Sign, Zooey (going first or combo keep with Dragon Sign)
The matchup to these actually play out pretty similarly with a few key differences. Mode Abyss has a superior late game if you fail to kill them early, as you need to deal with Cerb/Ginsetsu, of which Ginsetsu is usually game-ending. Our main issue with Mode Abyss is Reaper’s Slash. If they draw multiple of these, the matchup swings to their favour.
Evo Abyss is usually easier to deal with, they have less late game potential, though you do need to worry about the possibility of Drain from their 7-cost reanimate plays (which can be played around with intimidate)
The key consideration to this matchup is that Abyss has a lot of issues dealing with your high-end (Wilnas/Garyu) if you ramp two times early. In addition, their punishment is often limited even when you ignore their board to ramp. WIlnas himself will usually reset the board, and even if you’re at 10hp, they don’t have any 10 damage lethal options, and if WIlnas survives, they’re also on 10 hp (lol). Garyu is similarly a problem for both Abyss decks when dropped early, he’s just too many well-statted bodies while pushing face. Super Evoing Garyu into an 1-card board cannot be outed by Cerberus on its own. Multiple high-tempo, high-pressure turns like this can usually close out the game pretty fast.
For Evo Abyss, it’s not rare for them to be forced to Belial to out your board, but they’re just screwed anyway cause you’ve either got lethal or you can Garyu to pressure them again. Mode Abyss has few outs to Wilnas as well, the exception usually being some combination of their 3pp spells (if they even have it) or reaper’s slash. It’s quite frequently the case they won’t have the out if you ramped twice, so you can just snowball to win like that.
Now, if you don’t have double ramp, the game is harder, but not necessarily a problem. You can definitely take control of the board against Abyss early, a lot of their removal in the early stages of the game are RNG as well, so cards like Ocean Rider can really mess with their game plan, as they run the risk of hitting a 1/1. That said, you must ramp at least once vs Abyss, otherwise your high-drops will come down a turn too late to be useful.
Typically, you don’t really want to play a long game against either deck, which works out for you, because most games, you won’t have to.
Control Portal – likely our worst matchup
Mulligan: It’s awkward, because it could be puppets too. Technically, all ramp, but in reality, you can’t really keep that vs puppets…
Probably the worst matchup, not gonna lie. With Odins, it’s playable, but still quite unfavoured. Without Odins, I think you can’t win unless they brick.
Basically, this matchup just relies on praying they whiffed in at least one way or another. Your best hope is to ramp twice and then slam a Wilnas down and pray they don’t have an out. Make sure to pre-evo so it doesn’t die to stone breaker (6 damage).
Your other hope is that they can’t out your Garyu. Congregant of Destruction is usually a one card out, but…. I guess it’s possible they don’t draw it. The only way to play around this is to slam Garyu as early as possible (in which case they’ll still play it but pray that they hit the right targets lol) OR mitigating the odds by playing 1pp Lyrial to go wide.
In general, there’s just no way to deal enough damage to them because none of your cards in the late game stick for more than a single turn AND they have access to a lot of healing and wards, so you can’t really win if you don’t stick Wilnas/Garyu on the board for a turn.
Puppet Portal – Slightly favoured
Mulligan: 2-drops, Liu Feng (2nd), Ocean Rider (combo keep with 2-drops)
Similar to Sword, you don’t want to take too much damage in the early game. The balancing act, however, is that you also need to find a way to put them into lethal range as a deterrent.
A common situation that will come up in the early game is when they have a 2/1 on the board and Enhanced Puppet in hand. You might feel deterred to play a follower that will be destroyed by Enhanced Puppet anyways, but if you don’t play a follower, then they will simply curve out a 3/3, which is just as bad for you, unless you have Dragon Sign -> Merman as a counterplay.
The swing point for a majority of games will be on turn 5. Zwei Evo has always been a problem for Dragon, and it remains this way even now. In many cases, you will simply have to accept that you’ll take 5 damage from the Zwei. Focus on clearing the 6/1 instead and try to take back the board on the following turn. The only way to avoid this is by ramping into Wilnas, but you will usually take a bunch of chip damage in return.
There are often some difficult decision trees when it comes to the opponent’s 7pp turn. In most cases, you need to be wary of the possibility they drop Odin and evo to face for 6. The issue with this is that they get to poke your face for free, developing a multi-turn scenario where they chip you again with Orchis into an almost unavoidable lethal. The way to counterplay Odin is to simply have multiple followers on board, even if this means you’ll deal less damage. Speaking of which, if they are not able to access Odin, dropping Wilnas or Forte can be a game-winning play, only countered by direct removal like Sylvia which they may not have in hand (or even run multiple copies of).
Going into their 8pp turn, you’ll face a similar dilemma against Orchis. To play around Orchis, Wilnas/Forte are very good at deterring them from dropping her. However, it runs into the potential issue of them dropping Odin instead. If they do not have sufficient puppets prepared in advance, playing a 2/2 makes it a much more difficult decision for them. Since you will have ramped, it is often not difficult to accomplish this.
Usually, a key card that increases our win rate is Neptune. Her healing usually puts us out of lethal range for the rest of the game, which forces the portal player into an extended game state, which is often suboptimal for them. I note that while I consider this matchup slightly favoured, if they invest heavily into hard removal like Sylvia (healing + clear) and 4pp instant-kill spells, then the matchup becomes a lot more difficult.
Ward/Crest Haven – Unfavoured
Another matchup where your success rate depends directly on how many Odins you run. If you don’t run Odins, it’s very difficult to win, might be better to just concede and save time. Even if you do run Odins, it’s not a great matchup, though notably, Ward is much more winnable than Crest.
For the most part, I recommend mulling aggressively for Ramp. This is because most early game development is significantly impacted by Grimnir, which they hard mulligan for, and their 4pp 3 AOE board clear. Filene is the only effective 2pp card, as it outs Grimnir, but even then, I find it’s low impact.
Conversely, if we ramp aggressively, we gain access to our high pp plays, which can put significant pressure onto the Haven player to have the specific outs to our board. Cards like Garyu can be tempo’d out even if we don’t have access to Super Evo yet, as it forces them to clear a 5/5, 4/5 and 5/4 at the same time.
To win, we need to pump out big bodies over and over again, hoping that one of them sticks on the board, at which point we can start storming their face and overwhelming their ability to heal. However, without Odin, it becomes practically impossible to punch through Wilbert, which significantly impacts the win rate in the matchup.
Personally, while I find Ward Haven is possibly even favoured with Odins, pure Crest Haven is really hard to beat if they don’t brick. There is still too much board clear and health recovery for us to deal with, and the prerequisite to winning still requires us to draw a near-perfect combination of cards.
Roach Forest – Favoured
This matchup went from extremely hard to pretty easy in the span of one expansion, mainly because we actually got support and they did not.
My preferred mulligan is usually for Call of the Megalorca, Ocean Rider and -one- ramp. Going second, Liu Feng in the preference, while going first, it’s Dragon Sign. You only need to ramp once in this matchup, usually.
Early game, you want to contest their board with your 2/2 rushes. This will keep you healthy and also force them into using cards like Glade, which can be easily answered, especially with Liu Feng. Once we’ve ramped, we can look towards pushing storm damage to their face, keeping an eye out for their possible lethal burst. Cards like Garyu put immense pressure onto Roach if they don’t have lethal yet, allowing us to deplete their hand and health.
Note that cards like Forte are very effective at poking the Roach player if they have limited board space/reach. For example, suppose they have Godwood/Fairy/Fairy/Cairn on the field. If you Forte against this board and you’re healthy, you’re unlikely to take much damage back in return as they have nothing to trade into and can’t reach critical mass for Roach lethal.
Filene is also a very important card to understand how to use in the late game. Personally, I like setting up the Filene spell in hand early, by playing it overflow but not using the spell immediately. What you want to do is to set up a 2-turn checkmate scenario. You either want to storm them to lethal range or build a very wide board, then use the +1 cost effect to lock their hand. Typically, they will be unable to kill you, and clearing the board would result in a massive loss of resources (that is, to say, if they can even clear it). This works especially well when you have cards like Zooey as an extender, which means they’ll take an additional 5 damage before your real lethal turn.
Overall, the fact that we have more consistent ramp options and access to Zooey at 10pp, which can lock a Roach player out of an extra turn while taking 5 damage, makes this matchup much easier for us than before. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve lost to Roach this expansion.
VODS and Coaching
I posted a Video covering the decklist with a bunch of commentated gameplay here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn7NipSKZVM
Feel free to reach out to me via DMs for any questions you might have relating to the deck, and to see if I have capacity for coaching.
Final thoughts
For the first time in a while, Ramp Dragon is in a good place in the meta, where one does not feel kneecapped just for running the class. It has a good matchup spread which makes it a reasonable bring to bo1 2d tournaments, and it’s easy to pilot, especially with the notes prepared in this guide.
The deck can also be adjusted to make it stronger (and weaker) against specific decks in an ever-shifting meta, making it a reasonable choice for the entirety of the expansion.
Comments
NoLongerHuman
I started off using your version when you released the YouTube video to great success from my previous version, and coincidentally also switched to the Japanese version few days ago when started to see less Haven on ladder. Is there any optimisation you recommend I make for the weekend lobby tournament, I participate every week and can never win. My gut tells me that I should include one odin/azur. Overall awesome guide, really impressed by the sheer effort put into the detail.
