Shadow Era: Victor Heartstriker Deck

Victor Heartstriker is a hunter hero in Shadow Era, a free online trading card game. This guide will show you how to best build a deck around Victor and how to effectively play a match using the deck. Victor is not one of the top heroes in the game, but in my opinion is one of the most fun to play and most versatile. The deck that will be outlined in this guide is an ally deck and is meant to control the board by combining the abilities of the allies that you summon with Victor's special ability and hunter abilities. Combined with several solid human allies, a bow, and a few piece of armor, Victor is a formidable opponent when played correctly. The highest rating that I have achieved using this deck is 225 but I see the potential in it to reach near the 300 rating and be a potential tournament deck.

Victor's ability is one of my favorites in the game. For four shadow energy, an opposing ally is reduced to 1 health and then you return the top hunter card from your graveyard into your hand. My deck only has one hunter card in it, the Poison Arrow, which I have four of. The Poison Arrow disables an opposing ally for one turn and adds a one damage tick per turn (the ally is poisoned). Combined with Victor's ability, this card is amazing. On turn four, if you have 4 shadow energy and one Poison Arrow in your hand, you can cast Poison Arrow on an ally, use Victor's ability to bring that ally down to one health (it's killed at the beginning of your opponent's next turn) and then cast Poison Arrow again on another ally because you got your card back from your graveyard. You can also combine Kristoff (1 atk, 1 health) with Victor's ability to kill off high cost allies with a similar tactic.

The first thing to realize with Victor is that he is meant to utilize allies to win a match. Shadow Era is a very versatile game and you could go several different ways with each hero and build different decks that will be viable. However, Victor's ability allows him to control the board and destroy "big" allies quickly and effectively, which allows him to keep low and mid level allies out on the board longer. I have found that some players focus too much on getting their big allies out on the board instead of having allies that cost 1-3 resources out on the board. Big allies are important, but there are so many ways to quickly dispatch high cost allies that sometimes its the 2 and 3 cost allies that win a match.

The first things that you will need to add to your Victor deck are those low cost allies. Aldon the Brave is a great 3 cost card to add to your deck and I usually run with at least 2 of them. Having this card in play forces your opponent to deal with the ally sooner rather than alter, otherwise your small cost allies become a big problem and do a lot of damage. I use four Kristoffer Wyld as well, who is a 1 cost ally with 1 attack and 1 health. Having 4 in my deck means that I probably will have one on turn one and immediately start to put pressure on my opponent. Priest of the Light is a great 3 cost card and Dirk Saber and/or Puwen Bloodhelm are a couple 2 cost allies that you can add to your deck. These low cost allies also serve the purpose of a card drawing mechanic, which I will outline in the section about armor.

To go along with your low cost allies, you will need some big high powered allies. The strategy with a Victor deck is to control the board by having enough allies available to do damage to your opponent's hero and kill off or neutralize any opposing allies. Personally, I like Armored Sandworms and Aeon Stormcaller for my big allies. I've seen some successful decks with Raven Wildheart instead of the Sandworms, but Sandworms are very hard to kill with their ability of taking 2 less damage on every hit. And then if you can keep a Sandworm out for a couple turns and use Aeon's ability to add 1 attack and 1 health, they can become unstoppable.

One other ally that should be in your Victor deck is the Tainted Oracle. This card costs 4 resources and has 2 attack and 2 health. The reason to have Tainted Oracles in your deck is their ability. Whenever this ally is killed, you draw two cards. Any time that you can draw extra cards when your opponent does not, you gain a huge advantage. I will sometimes attack an opponent with this ally with the intention of just doing some damage and then having my opponent's ally or hero counter and kill my Tainted Oracle so that I can draw a couple cards.

To go along with your allies, you need abilities to support them. We've already talked about Poison Arrow, which is the best hunter ability out there combined with Victor's Shadow Energy ability. The other ability cards that will be helpful to you are Poor Quality, Honored Dead, and Bad Santa. Poor Quality will help you deal with opponent's armor and weapons. It reduces the attack and armor while also doubling the speed of the durability, meaning that if a weapon has 4 durability, your opponent can only use it two times. Honored Dead helps you with drawing cards and also heals your hero. After you have 3 allies in your graveyard, you can use honored dead to draw 3 cards and heal 2 health. I use this one more for healing, but drawing a few extra cards can come in handy. Bad Santa is a card that you can use to help with tough draws. If you don't get the cards you need early in the game, you can use this card to help get those certain cards that you need for the right situation (for example, maybe you didn't draw any 3 cost or lower allies and are getting behind).

I only run with one weapon type and one armor type in my Victor deck. Soul Seeker is the best bow out there for hunters. It combines very well with Victor's ability. When you kill an ally with Soul Seeker, your hero heals three damage. What I will do if I need to heal is use Victor's ability on an ally and then instead of using Kristoff or a Poison Arrow, I'll just kill it with Soul Seeker.

The armor that works the best with this deck is Wrath of the Forest. It only offers one damage reduction, but every time one of your allies is killed you draw a card. Drawing cards is extremely important in Shadow Era. If I got a good draw and have two or three allies out by turn four, I'll equip Wrath of the Forest on turn four to help with damage negation and get a few extra cards early from when my opponent kills my low cost allies. This card puts your opponent to decisions each time they attack you and your allies. Do they want to leave an ally on the board so that you don't draw any more cards? Or do they want to kill one of your allies and risk you drawing a better hand?

Once you build up a new deck in Shadow Era, the best way to test it is by playing quick games against other players. My suggestion is not to be worried about your rating and try out as many decks as possible. Shadow Era is a game designed so that anyone can be successful with any of the heroes available. Try out different decks, but I highly suggest giving Victor a try. He's my favorite hero and playing a deck like the one in this guide is a lot of fun!