A Moonstalker for all seasons

[Larus]

Rouges, Warrior, Priest and often Hunter are Heroes against which I have a good matchup. Tough ones are of course Mages and often Zaladar + Banebow.

Other MS are a story for themself. The first time I faced a Moonstalker with a standart combosition of CP, SF, Behemoths and all that good staff I literaly play any card. The match take approximatey about 37 min but in the end I won . I'm glad to say that MS vs MS depend less on luck with this deck than the previous spam as many PB as possible MS.

[bobwei]

I played with this idear by myself but I don't liked the idear to add another situational card. Having a bad start as MS can be your death if you have no healing, especially with this PB less deck. So I whant my startinghand as useful as possible.

Needless to say that Ogloth is not the best choise against Warrior and other Wulven. But because I have a very good matchup against Warrior anyway I'm willing to take that risk. Ogloth shins more against Heroes like Banebow, who can make you an awful lot of truble.

All in all is the moment were Ogloth comes to his best is when your opponent is running low on cards. He can be useful against any matchup and force your opponent to play his/her last tricks. Anyway it dosen't harm to have a SL and also one SK in the backhand

Explanation as good as the deck itself. I am convinced

Will it struggle against mages? How well does it work fighting mages? Oggy seems a good counter to them but then they got dagger of unmaking and u cannot hide too many turns.

[Larus]

I'm afraid to tell that this deck is not the most effectiv one against mages, like the most MS decks. Oggy can indeed help against mages, against shadow mages more than human mages because of Retreat!. If your managnet with shadow energy is good you might have enough for 2 or 3 rounds. But if you are looking deperatly for a specific card don't hestite to sacrifice one of your allies. You gain with WotF 4 cards at once. Should be enough to find whatever you need .

So you have to learn when to use your ability and when its necessary to kill your on ally. A match can take long with this deck if you rush you might get overrunned.

But bear in mind that Ogloth is the part in my deck that I would replace at first. Mass 3cc allies and PB work fine as well. If you whant to stay at just 40 cards you can also shortcut the pack wolf and gargoyle to switch the focus (I would suggest to add just 3). The problem with PB is that they are very recource intesiv and may slow down your game, just wating that one Retreat!, Assasination, etc. is payed to ruin your day.

[jonathan strange]

No words of wisdom to add here, just wanted to say thanks for sharing, currently working on an ms deck and this gives much to think on

[Ramirez Delgado]

Comparing Wulven Tracker and Belladonna I am drifting more to Belladonna. As MS you can hide your WT therefore there is a chance to activate his ability, but how long does a WT effective stay on board? The benefit of WT comes out, if you have board control, but as MS and shadow hero you are more passive and not as quick as human heroes. Belladonna gives you straight away a card, works also with Retreat fine and after hiding her you can attack with 4 DMG.

Especially against mage I heared from players that Shriek helps a lot therefore it could be better then regeneration. I prefer regeneration as MS is somehow slower and gets stronger in late game, therefore I like regeneration to have more health.

Gargoyles are very good blockers, but as MS you can already protect your allies. Therefore I like the idea to start attacking with Bad Wolf an enemy fattie, finishing the fattie of with a second ally and then let Bad Wolf regenerate. Bad Wolf can heal very good behind MS.

Do you often play Sacrificial Lamb? I believe it is always a hard decision to sacrifice an ally. Do you sometimes sac SL?

[Larus]

I have to amit that I don't know by myself what is the better choise in the most cases. Thats why I post this variation in the first place. And Bad Wolf is indeed an great card, its make often even fetties unnecessary.

Now where Aeon is a common card you have to deal with him one way the other and Bad Wolf is a brilliant card for that. You can disable him first or just kill him straight, the wounds heal. The downside with Bad Wolf and Belladonna is that they have less hp. But, and this is rather interesting, when you protect them with your ability only magic can harm them. So your opponent is forced to throw the magic at your allies and not on you and he have to do it immedetly. By doing so he loses cards he would need to optain board controll and because I have a WotF as backup... Its work even by some of these fancy 300+ Eladwen and they can sometimes be relativly easy to kill (sometimes...)

And to SL, I simply love this card. Its mostly used in the early round when I don't like my hand and/or risk to running out of cards (on ally that are dommed to die or low on health primarly). Otherwise I try to keep at least 1 of them on my hand just to get sure. When my opponent plays for exemple one PB and I haven't draw my CP so far I sacrifice one of my allies or even play an 3cc ally and kill him immedetialy. Then I can hide in the shadows and in the next round I disable the fetty and kill maybe even some other guys. And its helps of course to keep the Shadow Knight loop running.

Losing one ally is from time to time not a bad thing when you gain 4 cards for it

[Arston]

Yes the combo effect of Wrath of the Forest and Sacrificial Lamb is well worth it in many cases.

[OgAusp]

Very good MS deck. Its the most similar looking MS deck I've seen to mine so far. At some point my deck had almost looked like this.

I don't think you need LLN and WTs are unreliable but those are just my experiences. It also depends on your playing style. So, all in all, its probably just right for you. I implore you to explore more, however and keep it updated.

[Larus]

Thank you for your kind words . I always appreciate constructiv thoughts on my work.

I agree with you regarding WT. He is in the majority of matches rather unessary and what this deck need is actually more speed and not less with another "high"cost card. But LLN is a card I don't whant to miss. In the end their are many valid MS decks and I whant to find the verybest for the current meta, its hard but its my goal. (I might fail miserable )

So far I try to implement more cheaper units and work on my draw engine. I think more SL wouldn't harm. In addition I reconsider my choise about Pack Wolf. In the current meta the live redicliously short. It has of course also advantages due to the fact that the opponent lose a card like posien arrow or fireball. But if I would use Brutalis than would they live long enough to be sacrificed at round 3 or 4. Their is a heigh chanse that I could use in round 4 SL and one Now you're Mine.

Or I abondom this whole 2 cc ally idear and add Here be Monster, when I expand my controll cards with a 4st Now you're Mine I might secure board controll even more and have enough time to find my WotF. On the other hand I could combine my longliving Brutalis with Full Moon and force my oppent to play a Nova without beeing harmed.... So many choises....

But for now I need a break from MS. I had some very unfortunate games recently. Time to advance my Majiya and Banebow gameplay

[Larus]

Greeting fellow friends of Moonstalker, I have an update for my deck ready to share with you but I won't update the first-post until I'm absulty satisfied with the deck.

New deck

x3 Pack Wolf
x3 Infernal Gargoyle
x3 Death Mage Thaddeus
x3 Bad Wolf
x4 Shadow Knight
x2 Ogloth the Glotton

x4 Captured Prey
x3 Now You're Mine
x2 Ley Line Nexus
x3 Sacrificial Lamb
x2 Shriek of Vengeance

x3 Jeweler's Dream
x4 Wrath of the Forest

40 cards total

Reasons:
The biggest change is my draw engine. I use WT no longer and higher the count of SK and SL. It is very importent with this deck to compete with your opponent in the early rounds and in order to do so you need cards. WT is can be very useful against anything that is not a mage or has a very bad hand.

But I have two problems with WT, the first is that the majority of my matches are against mages and the secound is that the WT get often stopped anyway and a use of my ability is his survival not worth. So I prefer to sacrifce my own units instead. With a full functional SK loop I can even sacrfice my SK at round 6 without any loss if I play in round 4 JD, round 5 SK, round 6 attack + sacrfice + play new SK. All in all I just feel more secure with some SK at my hand and I can afford to use 1 or 2 to revive other allies than themself without destroying the loop.

What I dislike is that I only have 3 Pack Wolf and Gargoyle and also no Bloodlust or Full Moon. But I don't see any chanse so far to implement them in my deck.

Feedback is as always appreciated , have fun.