After a brief discussion on Shard of Void decks in the chat today with Vineroz, Sera, killsdazombies, and the community's favourite PVP player and deckbuilder, skyironsword, I did a little bit of experimental building with Death.
Shard of Void decks are beginning to see a little more competitive play in PVP events and Trials, which I think is very exciting - it's definitely an underused card, and is (/was?) considered by many to be the weakest shard in the game. Some of you already know that I'm particularly fond of playing with rarely-used cards, which makes building with SoV all the more appealing to me.
Effective SoV decks utilize strong stalling power, preventing the user from taking damage while the shards gradually chip away at their opponent's health pool. Iridium Wardens, Arctic Squids and Sundials all pair extremely well with Shard of Void thanks to their ability to either lock down the opponent's board, or prevent their creatures from attacking entirely. I haven't, however, seen any decks making use of the strong Parasite + Bone Wall combination...
Card Rundown
 | Shard of Void
The card the deck is built around. Provides the win condition for the deck, by gradually bringing the opponent down to 1HP, then finishing them off with a single hit from another damage source.
Having all six on the field will reduce your opponent's maximum HP by 18 every single turn.
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 | Parasite
Commonly overlooked for their poor stats, slow-effect ability and dual-quanta requirement, Parasites pull their weight incredibly well in Darkness/Death duos. A single Parasite doesn't pose too much of a threat on the field, but having multiple out can prove very troublesome for your opponent, capable of bringing down a vast number of enemy creatures in just a couple of turns.
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 | Bone Wall
A Parasite's best friend. Makes excellent use of the death effects your Parasites inevitably inflict, blocking a large amount of physical damage and quickly becoming very difficult to overpower.
Against decks where enemy creatures are either untargetable or do not exist, Parasites can sacrifice themselves to block damage from weapons or immaterial attackers.
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 | Vampire Dagger
A strong addition to almost any Darkness deck, and arguably the best weapon in the game, causing a 12 health-point swing every time it hits.
Weapons inflict their damage AFTER the Shard of Void health reduction occurs, so with a full stack of six SoVs out, Vampire Dagger can potentially snatch the win from a 24/24HP opponent.
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 | Drain Life
Your finishing move for when your opponent hits 1/1HP. Hits through shields that your Vampire Dagger may be unable to, such as Dimensional Shield, Hope, Fog Shield or Dusk Mantle.
In a pinch, it can also be used as emergency creature control, or may even give you the little bit of extra health you need to survive that one last turn.
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Strategies
Strategy is the same as with other Void-based decks - play your shards as soon as possible to start wearing your opponent down into kill range.
Control your enemy's creatures by playing Parasites and distributing infection counters. Spread the counters to optimize your Bone Wall advantage - try not to let any creature deaths go to waste.
Drain Life is your finisher through any shield, except for Reflective Shield or Emerald Shield - play it directly on your opponent's health pool once they get low enough. Vampire Dagger is your win condition through either of these shields. If you're facing a deck where you expect both a reflective shield and permanent control, make sure you hold a Vampire Dagger in your hand for the final turn.
Upgrade Priority
Vampire Dagger > Shard of Void > Bone Wall > Quanta > Parasite
Running your Vampire Daggers upgraded is very important for your survivability. An essential upgrade for almost any Darkness deck using these weapons.
Shard of Void comes second - we want to play them as fast as possible. Upgraded shards costing 1 Darkness quantum means we can begin playing them on turn 2.
Bone Wall is next - reducing the quanta cost of our most important defensive card provides a huge advantage.
Upgrading quanta isn't of paramount importance here, since we typically don't need to start playing Bone Walls until the mid-game. We benefit more from early Darkness quanta (hence the upgraded shards) than we do from early Death. Splitting our pillars and pendulums against Earthquakes is a wise choice.
Parasites are our lowest upgrade priority here. While the +200% damage increase Parasites receive when we upgrade them to Bloodsuckers is amazing, our win condition is not through physical damage, and our Shard of Void HP reduction will likely outpace the damage our Bloodsuckers do each turn anyway. They don't receive any durability bonus, so they are our lowest upgrade priority here. Only run Bloodsuckers if there's no reason not to - i.e. if you're playing with no upgrade restrictions.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Void decks excel at stallbreaking - unconcerned with shields, healing, Sundials or mass-creature control, our Dark-mark shards are able to very quickly tear through the health of enemy stalls. Bone Wall blocks all damage from Fahrenheit, stops the healing effects of Vampire Dagger, and stops Arsenic from piling on Poison counters. As such, this deck is a fantastic answer to powerful stalls like Siphonary, and the fearsome Firestall.
It's easy to see that even against Fire Bolt decks, our shards have no problem killing the opponent before they get anywhere close to OTK range.
Due to the repeatable control of Parasites, and the incredible damage-blocking potential of Bone Walls, this deck also performs very well against physical-damage rushes, such as Grabbows and Immo rushes.
Click to expand.
Deck tested against: Immo Rush This power at tackling two different deck types makes it a very potent force - being able to simultaneously break stalls and cripple rushes is not something many decks can do.
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Unfortunately, it can't beat everything - being fairly tight on quanta, this deck is weak to Discord, Devourers, and other forms of denial.
Bone Wall does nothing to stop Psions, Elite Chargers, or airborne creatures under Shard of Freedom, so unless you draw into Parasites very quickly, you're at the mercy of these attackers. It's also vulnerable to Poison damage - Vampire Dagger does well at sustaining against early damage, and Bone Wall does block Arsenic, but any deck packing 6 copies of Poison is very likely to outpace your Void win condition.
It also struggles against decks with more control, such as Grabbows with added Lightnings. Anything that can remove your Parasites and flood the field with creatures is likely to tear down your Bone Wall before you can get your opponent into kill range.
In summary, I've had a lot of fun tuning this deck, and seeing what it's capable of. It's a strong answer to stalls, and can definitely hold its own against a variety of rushes. Being 50% Darkness/50% Death makes it viable for either element to use under most event deckbuilding rules, so I'm excited to see if it gets used in upcoming events.
