Shyvana
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Poor (5/10)
High Investment Required
Epic Relics
Shyvana requires significant investment to overcome a slow early game and a high-cost base deck. While her scaling potential is high, she struggles in difficult encounters without her higher-tier constellation upgrades.
Spell Synergist
Creates copies of Shyvana in the deck and reduces the cost of her champion spell, which is the cornerstone of her defensive and offensive scaling.
Provides a crucial Overwhelm aura for all dragon units, ensuring that their accumulated stats translate into direct Nexus damage.
Doubles the stat buffs granted by her upgraded champion spell, allowing her to scale rapidly during combat.
Strategy
This build focuses on maximizing the value of Shyvana's champion spell, Confront. With constellation upgrades, this spell grants stats, Challenger, Barrier, and card draw. Echoing Spirit ensures consistent access to this spell at a reduced cost, while Secret Technique doubles the stat gains. The Beast Within is essential to provide Overwhelm, preventing the opponent from stalling with small blockers.
Titanic Ramp
Grants an extra starting mana gem if Shyvana is Titanic, significantly accelerating her deployment.
Provides necessary base stats to help Shyvana reach the Titanic threshold and refills mana upon leveling up.
Grants additional health and Formidable, pushing Shyvana's stats high enough to activate Starforged Gauntlets.
Strategy
Shyvana's primary weakness is her high mana cost and slow early game. This build forces her into Titanic status to activate Starforged Gauntlets, granting an extra mana gem at game start. This allows for a much faster deployment, enabling her to contest the board before the opponent can establish a dominant position.
Tactical Striker
Generates a fleeting copy of her champion spell every round, providing consistent access to buffs and Barrier.
Forces Shyvana to strike the weakest enemy upon summoning, providing immediate board control and a potential Fury trigger.
Rallies upon leveling up, allowing Shyvana to capitalize on her increased stats with an immediate extra attack.
Strategy
This build utilizes rare relics to maintain board control and apply pressure. Stalker's Blade offers immediate removal when Shyvana is played. The Grand General's Counterplan ensures a steady supply of her champion spell to protect her during combat. Crownguard Inheritance creates a powerful swing turn by rallying the moment she levels up.
Other Relic Options
Her signature relic provides a strong early attack boost and Overwhelm, making it easier to secure initial kills and trigger Fury.
Buffs all units in the deck, which is highly effective for a strategy focused on flooding the board with multiple dragons.
Prevents Shyvana from taking damage while attacking, ensuring she can safely scale without relying entirely on her spell's Barrier.
Provides consistent healing, which synergizes with its Rally effect, allowing for multiple attack phases in a single round.
Constellation
Shyvana's base deck features expensive units, making her early game vulnerable. She relies heavily on constellation upgrades to smooth out her mana curve, improve her champion spell, and provide necessary scaling to compete in higher-difficulty adventures.
Dragon Breath
When you summon a Dragon, it deals 3 to the weakest enemy.
Fury of the Brood
+1 Starting Mana. All allied dragons have Fury. Your Fury buffs are granted to all Dragon allies in play and in hand.Review
Grants Fury to dragons in hand and in play. Players disagree about this power's design. Some consider it an essential scaling tool that allows her hand to grow rapidly, while others find it overly restrictive because it fails to buff units still in the deck, leading to inconsistent draws.
Dragon Breath II
When you summon a Dragon, it strikes the weakest enemy.Review
Causes dragons to strike an enemy upon being played. This provides critical board control and immediate impact, but requires drafting dragons with high enough base stats to survive the initial strike.
Fortifications
Your Nexus is Tough.Review
Grants the Nexus Tough. While sometimes viewed as a reactive measure for her slow early game, it is highly effective at preserving health during difficult encounters where early damage is unavoidable.
Manaflow
Game Start: Get a mana gem.Review
Grants an extra mana gem. This is a vital upgrade that directly addresses her high-cost curve, allowing her to deploy threats much earlier and stabilize the board.
Call of the Brood
When allies attack, draw a unit, if it's a Dragon summon it attacking.Review
Summons a striking unit from the deck when attacking. Players disagree about its reliability. Some consider it a powerful tool for overwhelming the opponent with free attacks, while others find it inconsistent because it can summon unbuffed units or non-dragons that are easily destroyed in combat.
Gameplay Tips
- Prioritize Dragon Drafts
Shyvana's deck relies heavily on dragon synergy, but her starting deck contains several non-dragon units. Aggressively draft dragons at reward nodes and use healer nodes to cut non-dragon followers to improve the consistency of her abilities.
- Maximize Champion Spell Value
Her champion spell, Confront, receives significant upgrades through her constellation, eventually granting Barrier and drawing a card. Hold spell mana to cast this during combat to protect your units from lethal damage and guarantee Fury triggers.
- Manage Early Game Tempo
Due to her 4-mana cost, it is often strategically correct to absorb damage on the first turn rather than playing weak blockers. Deploy Shyvana on the following turn with banked spell mana to immediately protect her with Confront.
- Avoid the Starforged Gauntlets Trap
Shyvana's signature relic, Draconic Runes, grants its Attack bonus after the game checks for the Titanic keyword. Therefore, it will not activate Starforged Gauntlets on its own. Use alternative stat-boosting relics if attempting a Titanic ramp strategy.