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Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond is here, and there's a ton of new cards and strategies to get stuck into. One of the most exciting new decks is the Portalcraft Hybrid deck, which combines the two main Portalcraft decks, Artifacts and Puppets, to create a great and consistent control deck. Between the power of the fuse mechanic and the clear ability of Puppets.
While it may seem easier to go into one deck rather than split your game plan into both, Hybrid Portalcraft provides an all-around deck with the ability to control the board state early on. It passively develops massive endgame threats in your hand to take victory. We'll go into more detail about this later on and why this deck fixes some of the inconsistencies of both of the other Portalcraft Decks. Oh, and the deck only needs four Legendary cards, making it the perfect option for a Starter deck, too.
In this article, we're going to go over everything you need to know about Portalcraft Hybrid and how you can utilise it to take down the ranked queue and push to victory. This deck may not be as straightforward to build as other decks in the game, but it's a contender for being at the top of the format in the right hands.
How to Play the Portalcraft Hybrid Deck
Portalcraft Hybrid is a Portalcraft deck that combines the strategy of Portalcraft Puppet and Portalcraft Artifact, two potent decks that are already pretty prevalent in the metagame.
Both of these decks aren't at the top of the metagame, though, and for good reason; Puppets can't end games that effectively outside of 10174120, whereas Artifacts struggles in the early game versus the current metagame until it can get 90073130 online.
This deck aims to combat those two weaknesses. As the Fuse strategy creates a passive gameplay loop, any passive effects that you can gain value from as you're setting up your artifacts means that you can keep control of the board and take out small characters above-rate. This is done with cards like 10172120 and 10172310, both of which are effective earlier on in the game at keeping your enemies at bay.
In the meantime, you can set up your artifacts by gathering artifacts from cheap followers like 10171130 and 10173110, fusing only when needed, to be able to get out your big artifacts, using them multiple times with cards like 10173140 and 10172320.
On the top end, we've got game enders like 10174120 and 10174130 that can easily end games and provide tons of value when played correctly. Putting both of these game enders in the same deck means that you've got a potent endgame strategy, and a way to get there through controlling the board.
Portalcraft Hybrid Deck Tips and Strategies
Why Hybrid?
As mentioned previously, both of the Portalcraft decks have their own flaws against the metagame. The lack of being able to attack means that Puppets can't really do much unless it draws 10174120 which is a lot to hedge on. The other finisher is 10173130, but the thing is that decks like Runecraft can just fly over the board that 10173130 sets up.
On the other hand, artifact deck has an insanely strong mid-to-endgame strategy. Being able to consistently keep the board clear with 90073130 and push out efficient artifact-matters followers means that you're able to get into the game later on. However, the early game is a lot of twiddling thumbs and can't really keep up with decks like Dragoncraft, that ramp up far faster than we can get online.
So, essentially, Hybrid exists to try to be able to improve both matchups. The aim is to use Puppets to control the board state early while building up your artifacts throughout the game, using them later on in the game when resources are low.
With this, we can see that a more well-rounded deck strategy emerges; sacrifice your early followers to keep the board clear as you amass your mid-game strategy, before using your endgame strategy to close out the game. After all, 10174120 can be an 8 damage immediate kill in most cases, with even more if you've got any spare puppets around.
Use your puppets and gears wisely
Sequencing in this deck is incredibly important, as you need to be able to keep your opponent's board at bay to be able to get to the late game. We don't care about our early game followers, and so we can generally see them all as ways to be able to keep the board clear. 10172120 is a great card, as it give us a body and a 90071110 early on to be able to wipe out smaller followers, bridging the gap for us to get to our 90073130.
If going second, I often use my +1 play point on turn 1 for a 10172120, but otherwise I'll save it to ramp into a 3 or 5 cost instead. A lot of the time, this deck just won't have a turn 1 play, and that's okay. Our turn 2 is above rate anyway, and so we're not too worried about missing out on a turn.
Generally speaking, if we're not reacting, we want to be playing out our cheap threats to chip damage or have our opponent take out our early-game followers. We don't want our opponents to ignore the followers we're playing, which means that playing stronger units like 10173120, even to just threaten a future card destruction. (which you might not even want to evolve into).
You're naturally favoured as the game gets longer (except for against Runecraft, in which you do need to close the game a bit more quickly), as getting to 8 lets you deal until 8 immediate damage with 10174120, and getting to 10 usually means you can play a 90074110 to end the game.
Importantly, though, don't tunnel vision on 90074110! Having two copies of a game-changing Omnious Artifact in hand with multiples of 10173140 and 10172320 means that you can keep the game in your favour, without having to all-in for a 10 cost.
Budget and Possible Inclusions
Portalcraft Hybrid is generally quite affordable compared to other decks, typically requiring only six Legendary cards. Some builds even skip 10174110 — while it’s a great addition, it’s not as essential as the other two core Legendary cards.
If you're facing a lot of Aggro decks and need more tempo options, consider adding 10173140. It’s a solid board-clear tool offering strong clears even without committing extra resources — just free hand fusions.
Worried about Storm followers? 10072120 is a reliable Ward that becomes even stronger when evolved.
As always, you can round out your list with versatile Neutral tech cards like 10103110, 10102110, and 10103310.
Closing Words
Portalcraft Hybrid combines the best elements of each Portalcraft archetype and fits the current meta well. It completes a triangle where each version counters another:
- Hybrid beats Pure Artifact
- Puppets beat Hybrid
- Pure Artifact beats Puppets
Each of the three Portalcraft variants is viable, adaptable, and capable of performing well. So it’s up to you to choose the one that fits your playstyle and card collection best.
