Moonstalker - Wtzky's beginner's guide to SE Heroes v1.5!

[Wtzky]

Wtzky's beginners guide to Shadow Era heroes

Moonstalker is now a really interesting hero. Let’s face it, his old ability was a bit sucky. Now though, he is a very strong hero that can be used as an anti-melee hero due to his ability and has been shown to be able to dish it out with the best plenty of times.

Moonstalker



Faction: Shadow
Class: Wulven
Tier: 1.5
Utilisation: Moonstalker is starting to become popular again, and is starting to be utilised as his tier suggests he should be. I think most of that is because he does so well against Lance and Amber, two very popular heroes.

Pros and Cons (explanations after table):

Pros:	Spammable, strong ability 1	Excellent anti-warrior hero1	Versatile1	Great board control1
Cons:	Susceptible to Mages and burn damage2	Has some very weak class specific cards [sup]43sup]

¹ Moonstalker essentially has a beefed up Valiant Defender at his disposal every third turn. This ability is both strong, and spammable and allows him to exert some great board control in all stages of the game. His ability is made even better by Shadow Font, and he can get a nice lockdown happening mid-late game with several turns in a row where he can hide himself and his allies. Obviously this is a disaster for any opponents that rely on allies or weapons to do their damage. Late game, he can use his ability to hide his fatties and keeping a Plasma Behemoth or Molten Destroyer alive while you pump out more of them can be scary for anyone to deal with.

Given that Amber and Logan need to attack to be able to exert their board control, and the other warriors rely so heavily on allies to do damage, Moonstalker works as a great anti-warrior hero, allowing him to ensure his allies hang around while his warrior opponents are unable to do anything. He also works very well against Lance, as the ability to hide nullifies Lance’s ability and delays when he can use it. He also can hide his allies from Anklebreaker, which is certainly a useful trick to have up his sleev.. erm paws?

Moonstalker also has some great board control cards available to him. The cards that really stand out here are Now You’re Mine and Captured Prey. Now You’re mine is an extremely effective card, allowing you to take out anything that is played on turns 1-3. It really works well on those ultra effective weenies, such as Jasmine, Aldon, Gargoyle, Death Mage and so on, and since they retain their usefulness in the late game, so does this card. Captured Prey is arguably one of the best single ally control card in the game with Mind Control being the other stand out. It will effectively stop any ally in its tracks and even prevents the use of ally abilities, for only 3 resources. Be wary of that pesky Severed Ties however, and don’t ignore a captured opponent ally as you run the risk of your opponents fatty coming back into play when you least want him to.

Having access to Full Moon gives Moonstalker the option to buff his allies to do some serious damage and can give him some early board control when combined with weenies. Full Moon can also combine with Bloodlust, giving your allies an extra +4 damage when combined

These cards can also give him a chance against Mages, and a well built Moonstalker can definitely serve it up to mages.

Moonstalker can also be quite versatile due to all these things in that you can build quite a strong stall deck with him, locking down the board and damage taken for a long time while you sit there healing and doing ping damage to your opponent. He can also play somewhere in between ally heavy and solo and so is well suited to creative deck builders.

² Moonstalker’s ability prevents attacks only. Thus he is quite susceptible to abilities and burn damage. He cannot prevent burn from damaging or killing his allies and he cannot prevent abilities like Retreat!, Mind Control (although he doesn’t take the damage from the ally that Mind Control is used on), Crippling Blow and so on from being used. If only he had a protector, he would be as close to being complete as possible.

³ I’m not quite sure why it was changed but Rapid Bite is not as useful as it once was and Pack Alpha is an extremely poor card for its cost, albeit more useful for Moonstalker than Darkclaw. Nothing else to say about those two cards other than that really.

Ease of play for beginners - On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is hardest hero pick up and 10 is easiest hero to pick up:

6

Not too difficult to create a strong anti-warrior deck, much harder to make a Moonstalker that is balanced against all classes and stands a chance against Mages.

[Wtzky]

Good match ups:

His best match ups are ally strong or weapon strong decks

- Logan
- Amber
- Gwen
- Lance
- Jericho
- Serena
- Baduuru
- Elementalis
- Victor
- Boris
- Zhanna

Bad match ups:

Basically, the Mages are his worst match up

- Eladwen
- Nishaven
- Majiya
- Gravebone

Best suited style of play:

Control style with some early board control while you build up to playing his fatties with his ability behind them. Can also play weenie rush quite well.

Cost of creating a good deck:

Cheap to Moderate. A few starter packs will get you going and then you generally don’t need expensive weapons/armours to get a good deck out, and his ability cards shouldn’t cost you too much.

Combos:

Here I will include some interesting/fun/good plays or combos.

Full Moon + Bloodlust – give your allies an extra +4 damage and prevent hero damage!

Jeweler’s Dream + Now You’re Mine – great anti-rush defence

Plasma Behemoth + Moonstalker’s ability – Amazing crowd control here. Protect your Plasma B and watch him control the board next turn

Deathbone + Deathbone + Fullmoon – a very strong combo against Mage’s in particular. Not only can your Deathbone’s pack a punch here, but should the opposing Mage decide to Supernova, he will take 9 damage and you take 0. Not too shabby.

Moonstalker in the future:

Can only remain strong. Really. His ability is cheap, efficient and works against a good majority of the field as the game mostly revolves around allies or weapons for damage with some niche decks running mill/stall/plague and the Mages running burn. I don’t see the percentage of the field which Moonstalker does very well against thinning too much, so come what may he will remain a strong hero.

Good decks to check out on the forum:

There are actually a lot of Moonstalker decks to choose from. Some of the better discussion threads to choose from on the forums:

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....n-Seek-Stalker – Drakkon has been a resident Wulven class expert and champion for a very long time now. Having founded and been leader of the now disbanded “Wolf Pack” guild (a guild based on the Wulven Heroes) and being very vocal on trying to improve the Wulven Heroes to the point where they are strong and unique, Drakkon knows what he is talking about when he talks Wulven. His decks are both highly tuned and well worth a read. I also recommend checking out his videos which showcase his play style. If you ever need help with Wulven, Drakkon is definitely the resident SE expert/werewolf.

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....or-all-seasons – A very nice and quite powerful Moonstalker. Well worth a read

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....c-deck-for-1-5 – not only does Cruxx provide a good deck to use, but his explanation and tactics are sound. Check this out.

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....alker%29-1-503 – Another solid deck to look at

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....s-Resurrection – This deck is very interesting. Somewhere in between a solo Moonstalker and an ally heavy Moonstalker. Have a look and see!

Overall Recommendation:

I recommend him for all comers to the game. Beginners may initially struggle against Mages, but should find it nice and easy to build a competitive deck against all other comers and once they build some experience they will find ways to build the deck up to work against anyone. Experienced players should definitely take a look at Moonstalker for a different hero to bring to competitive matches/tournaments.

se_018.jpg