The core of Wrath Blood in AoA is the same as last expansion, but there have been significant changes to this deck:
In exchange, there were new additions: Harmonic Wolf is a strong follower you can use from turn 1 giving you a draw, Fell Transformation is a versatile card you can use to make this deck more powerful in many situations, and Enchanting Rhapsody gives you more options to set up Garodeth and possibly an OTK. In general, the highroll of this deck is weaker, but it is a much more consistent deck now.Shortly after many decks were nerfed about a week in from the release of the current expansion, Vengeance Blood took over the meta and became the most popular deck. While Vengeance is very powerful, it is somewhat inconsistent and also tends to fall victim to some decks that specifically target it. Wrath started to gain more attention as it is a much more consistent deck, and also has a good amount of healing—which is great against Vengeance and other decks like Fairy Forest. Wrath became the more popular Bloodcraft deck in the JCG that took place on April 12, as Vengeance was facing difficulties against Discard, and top 4 was dominated by Wrath. JCG Shadowverse Open 25th Season Vol.9 Playoff Bracket ResultsZhiff's Summary on JCG Open 25th Season Vol.9 12-04-2023
This list is similar to the recently popular Wrath lists in the competitive scene, except Devious Spiderweb Imp is used instead of Lunelle, Queen of Wolves. It’s a list that is more focused on having a strong early game and midgame in order to set up lethal with Garodeth.
Garodeth, Insurgent Convict – This card is the core of the deck. You need to damage your leader 4 times in a turn for 3 effect damage + 8 storm damage for a total of 11 damage. Garodeth is going to be your main damage source, and how you set him up is a crucial part of using this deck.
Vania, Crimson Majesty – Vania is a very useful card that can do some damage and deal with the enemy board while setting up Garodeth. She also has a free evolution when Wrath or Vengeance is active. Her basic is 4 damage with Summon Bloodkin + 3 damage with Gift for Bloodkin, and that will be 7 damage—but the actual damage is going to be more or less depending on how you use her in the situation. Fell Transformation does 3 plus damage with Vania, and you can also use the Forest Bat that is summoned by Vampire Queen’s Castle. If you use Vania on turn 5 and save the Gift for Bloodkin, you can have Garodeth set up on turn 6.
Howling Demon – This card clears the board, heals you, and deals damage. It is a powerful card that lets you push damage while protecting yourself. Since it is such a powerful card, it can often be tempting to use—but you should always think about whether Howling Demon really is the best choice. You might need this card later, or maybe there is an option to set up Garodeth for the next turn by using other cards like Vania or Demon Maestro.
These and Garodeth are what Raging Commander will search for, so keep track of how many of them are left in the deck before using Raging Commander to search for Garodeth.
Steamrolling Tank – This card heals you 1 health every time you damage yourself in your own turn, and can allow you to activate Wrath without losing HP. It also lets you use Garodeth when you have at least 2 health left. Being a 1-cost 0/2 Ward is also very powerful in the early game, and you can hide powerful followers like Raging Commander, Devilish Flautist, or even Garodeth behind Steamrolling Tank sometimes for great damage potential.
Raging Commander – This card searches for Condemned followers, and deals AOE damage to the enemy board. It recovers 1 play point when it is evolved, and can be used to deal damage to your leader twice with 2 play points. This card can be used early game to deal with the enemy board while looking for Garodeth or another Raging Commander, and it can also be used in the late game to activate Garodeth while clearing the enemy board.
These cards are important to activate Wrath while keeping your hand healthy early game. These are the backbones of the deck that make this deck so consistent.
Harmonic Wolf – This card allows you to put a follower on the board from turn 1 while damaging yourself and drawing. It is a simple card, but a very useful addition that increased the consistency of Wrath.
Howling Scream – This card is a 1-cost spell that helps you activate Wrath while drawing, and is a very helpful card early game and throughout the match.
Demon Maestro – You can get two draws out of this card while damaging your leader twice, so this card will increase your hand size while helping activate Wrath. Once Wrath is activated, its Fanfare effect gives you a 0-cost Infernal Orchestration instead of damaging yourself and drawing, and this is going to help you deal with the enemy board, or it can be a little bit of extra damage. When its Last Words is activated, it deals damage to yourself the next turn, and you can use this to set up Garodeth.
Veight, Twilit Highborn – This card is a 4-cost follower that damages your leader twice, draws two cards, and summons two bats. He can also summon Queen’s Castle from your deck when evolving, giving you extra heal. He buffs bats at the start of the opponent’s turn when Wrath is active, so you can make a decent board on turn 4. While Veight is very powerful, he is hard to use as a 4-cost follower, and you only use him once per match most of the time, so you are only going to need two copies of him at most.
These are very useful cards and shouldn’t be considered cutting unless the space is absolutely necessary.
Devilish Flautist – This card is a 1-cost follower that does 1 damage to your leader, has Rush and Drain, and has a +2/+0 Strike effect when Wrath is active for more damage and healing. This can be played early game for board presence and a little bit of healing, or later in the game for bigger heals. You can also hide this card behind Wards early game until Wrath is active, so you can attack the enemy leader with the buff effect.
Vampire Queen’s Castle – This card is a 2-cost amulet that damages yourself when Wrath isn’t active, and heals when it’s active. It summons a Forest Bat once a turn when you take damage during your own turn, and this can help build a board early game and increase Vania’s damage output a little bit.
Demonic Drummer – Most of the time you’re using this card for the accelerate effect, the two 1/1 Wards, and the damage to your leader twice for 2 play points. This card helps build a board, and these followers have 1 heal with Last Words so you can maintain your HP while activating wrath early game. The full 5 cost effect is also strong when you need a defensive option. One thing to note with this card is that its Accelerate effect can be used without board space, so you can still use it to activate Wrath even if you get board locked early in the game.
I want to convince you that my list is the best list, but people have different preferences, and you might like some cards more than other cards that I like, so I’m going to include other techs that you could consider.
Fell Transformation – This card is a 1-cost spell that destroys a follower with 4 defense or less and summons a bat on either side of the board, and the bat gets buffed if it’s on your side of the board. This is a great addition to this deck with a variety of uses: you can use it to deal with annoying enemy followers like Metatron early game, use it to destroy Harmonic Wolf or Demon Maestro to activate their Last Words while getting a 2/2 Forest Bat on the board in place, or you can use it with Vania to destroy one of your bats and summon a new one for 3 extra damage.
Devious Spiderweb Imp – She is a Ward with the same stats as Metatron. When wrath isn’t active she deals 1 damage to your leader, and when it is active she becomes a 3/6 ward and you also get 3 heal. With Flauros gone, it’s much harder to maintain your HP high while building a board early game and so you often have to take bigger risks when setting up for Garodeth. This is a card that can solve this problem by keeping your HP high and also building an advantageous state with the board presence. It’s not a very popular tech, but is a very powerful card to consider.
Vicious Blitzer – This follower has Rush, and deals 1 damage to both leaders with Fanfare and Last Words. He lets you deal with the board while activating Wrath, and also pushes a little bit of damage. It’s a good card, but it’s a Condemned follower, and it can be very annoying if it gets pulled from Raging Commander when you need Garodeth. Many people run this card to stop Doomlord against Vengeance, but it’s not really worth it—this will be explained more in the “Vengeance matchup” section.
Lunelle, Queen of Wolves – This card became popular because she can push damage and heal at the same time with the Enhance effect on turn 7 and beyond, and this gives you a safer alternative to Garodeth when one is not enough for lethal. While she is powerful, the down side of this card is that you can use Garodeth in combo with Steamrolling Tank if you have 7 play points—so this safer option is not absolutely necessary, and she also isn’t very good until turn 7 and can be annoying to have early.
Enchanting Rhapsody – This 5-cost spell gives you 0-cost Trill, Devilish Idol and Devilish Diva. Devilish Diva can be used in combo with Garodeth, and OTK setups are possible with her. You pretty much have to pass on turn 5 to use this card, but you can deal a huge amount of damage using Diva with Garodeth later, so it is a powerful card if you are able to use it.There are more cards that synergize with this deck, but none of them are worth consideration—at least in the current meta—and I don’t want to be saying a lot of negative things so I won’t go into detail.
Focus on activating Wrath, and draw for resources. Try to make your board strong so that you can push some damage early on. You also need to decide if you need to use cards like Queen’s Castle early to get more self-damage or if you need to save them for more healing, depending on the matchup.
This specific turn is very important, as you need to fine-tune your hand to set up for lethal. Take a look at your cards, and decide which cards you will need for lethal and when you will use them. You should be building a specific plan for what you need to do each turn up to around turn 7.For example…Turn 5: Use Vania and save a Gift for Bloodkin.Turn 6: Activate Garodeth using Gift, and evolve Raging Commander to look for a second Garodeth.Turn 7: Activate a second Garodeth using three 1-cost self-damage options (Steamrolling Tank, Howling Scream, etc) or one 1-cost self-damage + one 2-cost 2-self-damage instances (Demonic Drummer and Raging Commander).Another example…Turn 5: Use Howling Demon for damage and healing.Turn 6: Use Vania in combo with Queen’s Castle for more damage and healing.Turn 7: Activate Garodeth for lethal.If your hand is not good and aren’t able to build a complete plan like these, then try to think about how you can draw to look for the cards you need while pushing damage and protecting yourself.
I’m using Vania while healing with Queen’s Castle and Spiderweb Imp, and saving a Gift for Bloodkin for a turn 6 Garodeth.
If Demon Maestro is left on the board on turn 5, evolve it so the opponent has to deal with it, and you will be able to use Garodeth on turn 6 if the Last Words effect activates.
Late game: Finish it off with Garodeth. Valnareik is gone now, so you often have to use Garodeth twice for lethal. Remember to be flexible with the plan you built midgame, as you will need to change your action depending on what you draw or how much HP you have left.
The most important keeps are the draw sources along with Raging Commander. You are going to be throwing cards from the start to activate Wrath, so it’s very important to keep your hand healthy. Some people keep cards like Tank or Drummer for early game, but you could end up running out of cards, so toss them most of the time and really focus on the early-game draws. If you’re running multiple Veights, then only keep one because you’re not going to be able to use him until turn 4. Only keep one Maestro too because it will be hard to deal with the opponent’s board with multiple Maestros in hand.
These combos are instant keeps most of the time, but you can consider others like Castle with Commander too, depending on the matchup or just based on how you feel at the time.Flautist with Maestro: Since you are guaranteed to have draw on 2, it’s okay to keep a move for turn 1, even if it doesn’t draw.Drummer with Veight or Commander: You’re not going to be able to use Veight until turn 4, and you want to save Commander until the evo turn if possible—so it’s okay to keep strong cards to use earlier, and then you can get your hand size back up later.
Vengeance is not a very consistent deck compared to Wrath since they rely on drawing Vengeance activators, and if Vengeance doesn’t get all the right cards that they need, then you can simply overpower them. There are times when they get everything they want, and there’s not much you can do about that. That highroll possibility is why this matchup is not completely favored for Wrath, but that’s the same with any other deck trying to fight Vengeance. Many people run Blitzer to stop Doomlord, but you would use it around turn 5 or 6—and if you spend 2 play points on Blitzer, then you can’t really use any strong options that you would normally want to use otherwise, like Howling Demon or Vania. It would be easier for the Vengeance player to use something else instead and just wait a turn to use Doomlord, since your move isn’t as strong as it should be. If you wait until later to use Blitzer, then you’re more likely to be dead from other cards like Galom or Vania.The right way to deal with this matchup is by healing. Pressure them so that they would be forced to use Doomlord or evo points when they don’t have lethal yet—once they use a Doomlord, their options will be very limited, and they won’t be able to get past your defense.The opponent is getting pressured, and they are forced to use Doomlord because their HP is low.
They had to throw their Doomlord, and they need to have lethal next turn or else they lose, but getting past the 3/6 Ward to deal 10 damage is difficult.
This matchup is actually not as bad as many people think it is because Drazael is not the end of the world if you play it right. The best advice is to make sure to save Raging Commander and evolution points, and it will be much easier to get past Drazael. Try to save Flautist as well to deal with extra wards like Noir. If you just keep this in mind, this matchup should be much easier for you.Here Garodeth is set up for turn 6 with Maestro, and Drazael is ignored for now to deal with it next turn using Raging Commander.
This matchup, on the other hand, is not as good as people think it is. Before this expansion, the Nobilis effect on Fairies did help Garodeth—but now Forest users are able to save the Fairies in their hand and use them all on turn 6 in combo with Filly for a huge amount of damage. So now, this matchup is just about hitting each other until either you or they die. But Wrath does have more options to heal, and Forest needs to pull Filly to win most of the time.One piece of advice in this matchup is that they need board space to get the most out of Filly, so it might be a good idea to ignore their board on their turn 5. In this case, Enchanting Rhapsody happens to be the perfect card to use. You can set up Garodeth for the next turn without having to put anything down on your board.
In this matchup, you can use the clash effects from Flame General’s Regalia to activate Garodeth. This does give you an advantage, but sometimes you take too much damage for you to actually be able to use Garodeth safely, so be careful.If the match lasts until turn 7, then Mars has Valiant Fencer to deal a huge amount of damage, so you have a time limit in this matchup. If you’re not able to finish the game before the enhance Valiant comes, then the full cost Drummer is actually very useful because each Drummer has low attack so the buffed Hero followers will not be able to leave the board and the Mars user will be left with limited board space to deal damage to your leader.
Healing is very strong in this mirror, but don’t forget to try to push damage whenever you can. If you drag out the game too long, it becomes easier for your opponent to deal huge damage on you, so make sure you’re pressuring your opponent. Another advice would be to try to save cards like Queen’s Castle and Flautist early game if you have other options so that you can get more healing out of them.
This matchup is not fun because of the amount of heal they have, and Wrath actually has trouble clearing the big ambush followers since Raging Commander and Howling Demon don’t do enough damage.You can be really aggressive because they rely on ambush for damage and they can’t do much damage from their hand, so you don’t have to worry too much about your health, but you will have to clear their board—otherwise you are going to take huge damage. Another technique that is good in this matchup is to play Raging Commander or Garodeth early like on turn 4 and hide them behind Wards, so that they would be forced to use options other than Elluvia, or take huge damage if they evolve Elluvia and leave your board ignored.
This matchup is similar to the Elluvia Haven matchup except you don’t really have to worry about dying until around turn 8 or 9 even if you ignore some of their board, so you can actually be fully committed to being on the offensive. You shouldn’t really use Rhapsody most of the time in this matchup because Weiss can be annoying, and you should make sure you leave some board presence up each turn so they won’t be able to keep their evolved Weiss at full health.
You should be able to win unless they highroll you, especially now that they lost the heal from Sacred Bird. Make sure to keep your health as high as you can since they will be going for near-OTK damage, and it’s also good to keep Steamrolling Tank in your hand so you can use Garodeth even if they get you down to 2–4 HP.
This is similar to Spellboost, except you don’t have to worry about your health until you know their King is ready. They don’t have a lot of early damage, so you can be actively trying to set up turn 6 Garodeth.
These are similar to Discard—except there’s no Noir, so it’s so much easier. Just make sure you have Raging Commander and evolution points to deal with Drazael, and you should be able to win.
Last Word Shadow, Burial Shadow, Machina Portal, Puppet Portal: These are decks that are not strong enough to even worry about. Just make sure you follow the basics of Wrath, and you should be able to overpower them.
Wrath Blood is a deck that gained popularity in the recent competitive meta, and it is a very powerful and stable deck. This deck requires the skills to plan out a lethal, but it should be fun to learn, as you can deal very high damage with the right setups. Wrath is going to be a great pick for you because it is powerful, consistent, and has very good matchups in this meta.