Guardian Satan: Deck Guide

Game-AI / February 7, 2017

This article is originally from Game-AI. It is provided here translated with permission.
View the original article here.

In the Standard meta, Guardian Satan was one of the decks that was immensely popular due to its strength and its ease of handling for new players. However, in the DE meta, the appearance of Storm, Elana, and Seraph Haven all but erased Guardian Satan from the meta. Now, in RoB, this archetype may finally be regaining its former strength.

It is only helped by the fact that Guardian Sun has great synergy with some of the newly-released cards, and that in an aggro meta full of Daria and Blood, Guardian Sun provides safety.
Today, we'll be presenting noname (@noname6102)'s Guardian Sun Haven.

Playstyle

1. What is Guardian Satan?

This build is a control deck that seeks to use wards and powerful removal to deflect your opponent's assaults, then close out the game with Prince of Darkness (Satan).

Guardian Sun

This amulet is at the core of the deck. Any follower with 4 or more defense gains Ward when placed on a field with a friendly Guardian Sun.

In this deck, even an unevolved Priest of the Cudgel can serve an alternate use as a 3/4 Ward, and Curate with its powerful healing on Fanfare doubles up to even further wall off aggro.

Repeatedly playing high-health followers, with Guardian Sun gaining Ward, is a major threat to aggro decks.

Satan

Prince of Darkness serves as this deck's finisher. Fitting of the Demon Lord, this card transforms your deck into an Apocalypse Deck on fanfare. The Apocalypse Deck is especially powerful against other control decks and will often decide the game. In previous metas, there would exist Satan mirror matches in which the first person to play Satan would win the game.

Satan's weakness is that he leaves you open on the turn he is played, but by giving him ward with Guardian Sun, you can cover this weakness. Similarly, Servant of Darkness is just a vanilla follower without evolution points, but with Ward, it becomes an iron wall.

2. Playing Around the Meta

Guardian Satan is powerful against aggro and midrange, but suffers against decks with alternate win conditions like Purgatory Forest and Dimension Shift due to how late its kill-turn arrives. This is a weakness that must be kept in mind.
However, by incorporating certain cards into the deck, we can make the archetype even more powerful in neutral or good matchups.

Angelic Barrage

Angelic Barrage deals 1 damage to all enemies.

Due to Guardian Sun, this deck is quite powerful against Aggro Blood and Miracle Roach, but by adding this removal, it can gain even more of an advantage. While some players might dislike the tempo loss, Haven can make great use of a 1-damage ping, because it will often bring enemies within range of Priest of the Cudgel and Blackened Scripture.

Odin

Odin completely banishes any enemy card on fanfare.

The card which enables Elana to make beneficial trades, Elana's Prayer. The difficult-to-deal-with alternate win condition of Seraph Haven, Enstatued Seraph. Shadowcraft's endgame powerhouse, Mordecai the Duelist. As Banish overrides Last Words, this card makes incredibly powerful plays.
This also helps deal with Guardian Satan's natural enemy, Purgatory Forest, and aids in removing the big bodies of Ramp Dragon.

Interview with the Creator, noname

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this deck?

Strengths:

1. Plentiful wards and removal make this deck strong against aggro.
2. With 3 Odin, you can also combat Purgatory Forest and Seraph Haven.

Weaknesses:

1. You can't deal well with Dimension Shift.
2. Against Elana Haven, you'll lose if you don't draw Satan.

What is the most important part of playing this deck?

Win via playing Satan with Guardian Sun.

What are this deck's matchups?

Disadvantage: Dimension Shift Rune
Slight disadvantage: Purgatory Forest, Elana Haven, Seraph Haven
Everything else you can beat at greater than 50% if you're careful.

What's the reasoning behind the omission of RoB cards and Beastcall Aria?

Beastcall Aria is strong when played on Turn 2, but without the offensive power of Storm Haven, the reinforcement power of Elana Haven, or any countdown acceleration in general, simple wards or heals in the form of Temple Defender and Healing Angel are generally much safer.

Among the new cards, Ancient Lion Spirit and Tribunal of Good and Evil are definitely worth playing, but you don't particularly need them, so I've omitted them for now.

Any last comments?

The Guardian Satan of the early era of Shadowverse can still fight on. It's incredibly fun to battle against the currently popular Elana Haven, so try it out!

This concludes the interview. Noname, thank you for your deck as well as the interview!

This article is originally from Game-AI. It is provided here translated with permission.
View the original article here.