On the first day of Legends Rise set, many players had incomplete decks as it was the first day of Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond. However, it seems players have agreed that the best decks to play currently are Control Haven, Midrange Sword, and Artifact Portal. Frankly, not much could be said when the card pool is small for each class, and the economy of the game being the way it is now. Still, day one decks are worth exploring as it gives an early look at what the metagame for Legends Rise will be.
The Top Performers
Control Haven, also could be referred to as Amulet Haven, takes the lead as it has witnessed many players experimenting with it, and getting good results. Bma from Shadowverse Master went on a 9-win streak with the deck into Sapphire Group, despite the deck being in unoptimized state. The deck can play a mix of aggressive and defensive playstyles. Pact of the Beast Princess and Winged Statue give you access to Holyflame Tiger and Holy Falcon, old fellows coming back with Rush and Storm respectively. This combined with Darkheaven Grace provides solid aggression while maintaining control of the game. The main playmaker, Rodeo, Anathema of Judgment, presents a huge tempo swing in your favor while setting up your amulets. You could usually follow up with Jeanne, Saintly Knight, or Lapis, Shining Seraph to squeeze up that last bit required to achieve victory by overwhelming the opponent. Salefa, Guardian of Water is a great tool for you to control the board in the midgame, and Unholy Vessel is a good way to transition into your control playstyle and shift gears. Overall, this is a solid deck for you if you prefer to play a mix of aggro and control, while learning more on the control side.
Below is a sample deck used by LVH / Era53 to achieve an impressive 10 winstreak in the sea of all the rampant Sword decks!
Speaking of Sword, it is a solid, well-rounded deck that requires basic game knowledge to achieve great results! If you are new, or want to understand more about the environment in Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond, Midrange Sword is a good introduction. The deck plays an aggressive early game, and has tools at hand to finish games very quickly in Albert, Levin Stormsaber. It can flood the board consistently with tokens through Zirconia, Ironcrown Ward, and Luminous Magus. While the board might seem tame compared to some boards in the old Shadowverse game, the deck presents a threat of either buffing the board if it sticks, or gets more burst damage out to finish the game before it runs out of steam. The main lethal threats in the late game are Albert, Levin Stormsaber, and Ravening Tentacles, complimented by Amelia, Silver Captain, who acts as a recharge battery for the deck to make sure it can sustain in the late game. If you like to fill boards, play without having to think much about complex game interactions, this deck might just be right up your alley.
とーふ achieved an incredible 16 winstreak with this deck and you, too, can reproduce these results if you copy this list below and swarm the ranked ladder with this braindead deck.
The last deck in the top performer category is a fan favorite Gundam deck. Artifact Portal, unsurprisingly, showed good success during the end of the first day of Legends Rise! The Artifacts arsenal equips you with tools for any situation. Whether you need healing, removal, or burst damage, you can get all of that and more if you build your mechs correctly! In your journey building Masterwork Artifact Ω, you get access to insane tools that stay by your side, ready to deploy with cards like Doomwright Resurgence, and Ralmia, Sonic Boom. This positions the deck as a good challenger to the swarm of early aggressive decks, and board flood decks. This deck is versatile, and that might make it seem hard to pilot at first as you need to correctly assess each situation. You will need to take many decisions in the early game, and you have to identify your win patterns while not being tunneled into creating your lovely big Gundam mech. As it turns out, you could win games even before getting to the late game due to the sheer synergy cards in Artifact Portal have! With that said, it sure feels nice ot use that extra play point to deploy your big mech on turn 9 and steal the game :). Also, Orchis is very great here, despite being a Puppetry card!
You can find a solid list that managed to get 17 straight wins by BEANS_/ビーンズ here.
The High Potential Decks
Dragon seems to have found some success using its usual Ramp tactics with Storm followers. However, Burnite, Anathema of Flame presents a new opportunity to explore for the class. Coupled with Ruler of Cocytus and access to Astaroth's Reckoning, the deck puts the opponent under a timer once it achieves this combo. It remains to be seen whether this version becomes the standard for Dragon, or sticking to solid, proven methods of hitting the opponent face enough times to achieve victory prevails. For what its worth, a sample list with 17 wins, featuring the Burnite + Astaroth combo is presented here
For Runecraft... Daria seems to be doing its usual business. Spellboost Rune has been getting some notable results, and it might as well be a stable in the metagame for the forseeable future. The 19 damage combo with Kuon, Fivefold Master and Dimension Climb is solid, but other decks in the metagame are doing more unfair things, and do not rely on a single trick to end the game. While the deck can cheat out overstatted followers ine Blaze Destroyer early on, other contenders have tools to deal with tall boards while sustaining much of the damage dealt by Spellboost Rune. With that said, players seem to have found considerable success with it, so take it for a spin and see what results you get!
Another deck worth looking at is Aggro Abyss, as it could be a cheap deck for you to start collecting those precious rupies to build out your dream deck! Puppetry Portal is also on the same boat. While Orchis, Linked Heart is a very solid card, it has unfortunately found more success in Artifact Portal over its Puppetry Deck! There are also other builds for Midrange Abyss that you might want to play around with!
A Dry Forest
Or is it?! At first, it seemed Forestcrat might be back on the menu with its signature Rhinoceroach on the table. Afte all, Aria, Lady of the Woods powers up all your Pixie followers, which is the new trait given to Fairies, with the Storm ability. So, in theory, you could overwhelm the opponent with a powerful onslaught of Fairies and Roaches. The deck does have potential, but it might take time for players to adjust to its playstyle. Or, it could just be not in a good position for the current metagame with its current card pool. If you do want to try out the deck, this is a sample deck that has found some success on the ladder
Summary
Overall, the meta seems to be centered around Artifact Portal, Control Haven and Midrange Sword. Those three decks are the ones achieving the most notable success on the first day. Similarly, players have found Spellboost Rune and few variants of Ramp Dragon to be decent in the current metagame. Other decks, while not as powerful, are certainly playable if you are passionate enough about them. However, it might also be possible that players have not experimented with those decks enough considering the lack of resources, and other decks being easier to pilot and climb with. Ultimately, it is still very early in the expansion, and the game has just launched, so let us all have fun and enjoy some good Shadowverse!