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  1. #1
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Birdie’s Hero Breakdown – Darkclaw

    (I find myself a little bit loathe to write this one, but I promised myself I’d do a Wulven hero next, and quite frankly Moonstalker isn’t up to snuff at the moment.)

    Intro

    Darkclaw is the hero with the games most chequered recent history (though his brother Moonstalker is vying for the crown). For as long as I’ve been playing (v1.25) Darkclaw has always been that super annoying solo/stall hero, slowly chipping you down whilst dropping Rain Delays and Full Moons to prevent damage. Not to mention until this most recent iteration, DC’s ability has always involved some form of damage prevention. Technically with Ambush it still kind of does.

    Overview

    Darkclaw has always and no doubt will always be primarily a solo hero. This isn’t his fault so much as the fault of his card pool. Simply put it’s just so much more enticing to play him solo as allies deny him his most potent card, Lone Wolf. But anyways…

    The Wulven card pool is split two-fold, one half full of control and stall potential, the other half trying to encourage an allied rush strategy.

    They have effective ally control (Now You’re Mine, Captured Prey, Rabid Bite, Lost in the Woods), damage reduction and stall (Full Moon, Thick Hide, Blinding Storm), phenomenal heal (Lone Wolf, Regeneration), weapon boosters (Speedstrike, Unstoppable, Ripping Fury), and of course the infamous infinite weapon What Big Teeth. They also have a few half decent allies with some neat abilities (Pack Wolf, Tiger Wulf, Lightning Hunter, Howlfang), and a very good draw tool in Blood Moon. Unfortunately there just isn’t the synergy in the allied pool that there is in the stall pool, particularly for Darkclaw.

    Allies

    As Darkclaw has always primarily been a solo hero this is a difficult section to write. There are a few allies that have consistently made their way into the few allied decks out there however.

    Call of the Crystals

    • Pack Wolf: very solid 2cc drop, he’s a Puwen with the ability to buff, though it’s quite conditional. Regardless stat wise he’s very strong.


    • Shadow Knight: Very common in allied DC decks as he works well with Wrath of the Forest and allows the few allies you can cram into a 40 card deck another pass.


    Dark Prophecies

    • Lightning Hunter: The number one ally for Darkclaw because he appears in a lot of solo decks as well. He acts like a pseudo weapon, providing three damage and he works wonders with Jeweler’s Dream and Speedstrike. No doubt the best of the new Wulven allies; it’s just a shame the art is terrible.

    • Tiger Wulf: Item/ally destruction and a solid body, Tiger Wulf is really DC’s best option to deal with Aeon besides stalling him out or beating him down.

    • Ironhide Karash: I prefer this guy over Pack Wolf now, simply put he’s immune to any source of 2 combat damage or less, and anything else he dies in one shot just like Pack Wolf. Considering how conditional Pack Wolf’s buff is I’m not fussed about losing that.

    • Morbid Acolyte: His ability can bypass protector, which is always a good thing for DC. Tough stats as well.

    • Furrion Terror: In a full stall/mill build this guy can really do wonders, particularly with Evil Ascendant. Mini board wipe, and softens up allies if you have to kill them with weapons.
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  2. #2
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Abilities and Items

    This is where the meat and potatoes of any Darkclaw deck lies. The Wulven abilities are amongst the strongest in the game, and now with the addition of a solid draw card they’ve become even more deadly. However for the large part Dark Prophecies added little else.

    Call of the Crystals

    • Lone Wolf: Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it; this card should never have made it past the cutting room floor. Infinite heal combined with all the other stall power in the Wulven pool leaves you with long, tedious, drawn out games. Still, nothing is going to change now, so we’re all just going to have to run attachment hate . Core of every solo Darkclaw out there.

    • What Big Teeth: The infinite weapon. This thing is the bane of so many decks because it REQUIRES item destruction to remove, and considering most Darkclaw decks pack four (and some include Master Smith too) it WILL survive eventually.


    • Speedstrike: 2 attacks from your hero each turn and with WBT there is no downside as you don’t wear your weapons out any quicker.

    • Full Moon: This card makes me sad when I see it, simply because it is hardly ever used for its intended purpose, ally buff. Instead it’s a supercharged Rain Delay, preventing all damage to the hero for a turn and is once again a real solo card. Chain this with Rain Delay and you have a potential 8 turns of near perfect stall.

    • Rain Delay: Prevent allies from attacking you, and once again allows you to stall the game state.

    • Bad Santa: You need draw to power the stall, and considering most of your opponent’s cards will be dead drops in the face of your strategy, this could almost be considered unilateral.

    • Now You’re Mine: One of the best ally removals period, this is so good for its cost. I find it hard NOT to run 4 of them, particularly considering the importance of 3 cost allies to most builds.

    • Captured Prey: This one deals with the bigger allies, something Darkclaw traditionally struggles a bit with.

    • Regeneration: Nice quick heal, also gets rid of any negative attachments and effects.

    • Evil Ascendant: Not always seen as Darkclaw tends to be faster to the kill than his brother, but still lethal in conjunction with all that stall power.


    Dark Prophecies

    • Blood Moon: The most important card from DP for Darkclaw. This is a unilateral Bad Santa, it just takes 3 turns to get there. Basically you can pretty reliably chain these for a Blood Frenzy like effect without the life loss.

    • Spectral Sabre: Allows you to deal with some nasty attachments (like Enrage), plus is a handy 8 damage.

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  3. #3
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Playstyles

    • Aggro: Also what I refer to as beatdown. You’re the aggressor, the proactive player aiming to force responses from your opponent. You hit fast and often. This sort of playstyle generally uses a lot of allies and/or weapons/direct damage. Aggro is a style of play that relies heavily on maintaining tempo. Mess that up and chances are you can overrun an aggro deck.

    • Control: The flip side to aggro, control aims to win by being reactive, constantly having the right answer until it’s ready to produce threats of its own. Control doesn’t so much rely on the tempo play, it’s more reliant on card advantage for the majority of the game.

    • Stall/Mill: The ultimate slowdown. We all know the main culprit here (Millstalker), though there are other stall decks around of varying levels of effectiveness. While these decks claim to win by decking you out (milling) they’re actually stalling you, milling is just a by-product of that.


    Darkclaw is stall/mill, or at best heavy control. Some people would class him as Aggro as he primarily goes for the hero, but in actual fact that’s only possible because he’s able to control the board state with his abilities. A true Darkclaw aggro deck would be an allied one, but they’re iffy at best as there’s a lot of set up required to get them pumping and a dilution of deck focus.





    Matchups

    Okay, here’s the deck example, a rather traditional semi-solo Darkclaw with Lightning Hunter:

    Darkclaw

    3 x Lightning Hunter

    2 x Captured Prey
    3 x Now You’re Mine
    3 x Full Moon
    3 x Lone Wolf
    2 x Shadow Font
    3 x Rain Delay

    4 x Blood Moon
    3 x Bad Santa

    4 x Speedstrike
    4 x What Big Teeth
    2 x Jeweler’s Dream
    1 x Master Smith

    2 x Ley Line Nexus

    39 cards + hero

    Nothing super special, control and stall your way to victory. Always focus on the hero and keep the draw ticking over. Truthfully this strategy is much the same regardless of the hero you face, so most of these strategy guides will be pretty similar.

    Boris Skullcrusher
    Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
    Tactics: Blood Frenzy helps you here, constantly bringing you closer to victory. Cripple and control his allies and save your stall for late game when the big boys come out to play. Always keep a Ley Line ready for the King’s Pride. You can beat them down, but it’ll cost you a few turns and that’s no good.

    Amber Rain
    Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
    Tactics: Much the same as Boris, though you will take retaliation damage from Amber’s weapons when your ability isn’t active, and Rain Delay is less effective. Still, with your ample heal and Full Moon you should be fine.

    Victor Heartstriker
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: No allies bar the expendable Lightning Hunter, so this is a cake walk. Captured Prey for Sandworms.

    Gwenneth Truesight
    Matchup Quality: Medium
    Tactics: She has big weapons so she can deal significant damage when you’re not stalling. The rules for her are much the same as the rules for Amber, though in this case your draw is far superior. Watch out for ITF chains though.

    Nishaven
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: Solo Darkclaw laughs at mages, he really does. Go hard and go for the throat.

    Eladwen Frostmire
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: See above.

    Jericho Spellbane
    Matchup Quality: Very Hard/Auto-Loss
    Tactics: Unless the Jericho player gets the worst draw in history, you WILL lose. The only question is how long it’ll take you to do so.

    Zhanna Mist
    Matchup Quality: Very Hard/Auto-Loss
    Tactics: While Zhanna can’t hit your attachments as reliably as Jericho, she can negate large chunks of damage easily. She will just outlast and delay you with item destruction until such time as she can get an Aeon down then it’s good night.

    Lance Shadowstalker
    Matchup Quality: Medium
    Tactics: Rogues carry lots of Item D plus Lance has hasted and stealthed allies galore, so this can be difficult if you don’t get your stall rolling.

    Serena Thoughtripper
    Matchup Quality: Medium
    Tactics: If you don’t get your draw going Serena can be troublesome with her discard. She also likes Aeon as well.
    Last edited by Preybird; 08-28-2013 at 10:17 PM.
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  4. #4
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Ter Adun
    Matchup Quality: Medium/Auto-Loss
    Tactics: Allied Ter isn’t super hard, despite his ability to wipe your weapon over and over again. Blood Frenzy helps you once again, just keep swinging at the hero and keep spare weapons in hands. Solo Ter is auto-loss, no two ways about it. Once he gets Snow Sapphire to stick you might as well wave the white flag.

    Logan Stonebreaker
    Matchup Quality: Medium
    Tactics: The rules are much the same as Boris, but there are added threats in DMT and Behemoth. Save your Captured Prey for Behemoth and NYM for DMT. Shadow Knights add another layer of difficulty, recycling those troublesome allies.

    Banebow
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: Go for the face, and do not stop. His draw relies on his allies dying, so don’t kill them if you can avoid it, just stall him out.

    Baduruu
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: Res D Baduruu cries when Solo Darkclaw comes to the party. Considering Darkclaw can win reliably on 3 resources there’s nothing Baduruu can do (in fact I’d almost consider it auto-win vs Res D Baduruu). Tempo Baduruu is trickier but hardly a challenge.

    Majiya
    Matchup Quality: Easy
    Tactics: Keep those Rain Delays ready, they annoy the crap out of Portal Majiya.

    Gravebone
    Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
    Tactics: Gravebone is trickier than the other mages because he cycles threats over and over. Behemoths become utterly deadly with him, so be sure to keep your Full Moons.

    Elementalis
    Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
    Tactics: Super buffed monsters, plus access to Morphic Armor and you’re in for a tough fight. You may get off to a decent start, but Elementalis will come back strong.

    Zaladar
    Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
    Tactics: Even though Zal has Morphic Armor to help him along, he lacks all the super durable allies of Elementalis and his allies will die in droves to your retaliation attacks. Keep the heal ticking over and you’ll take this.

    Darkclaw
    Matchup Quality: Very Hard
    Tactics: Solo Darkclaw vs Solo Darkclaw. The only thing worse would be two Millstalker’s battling it out. Offer Draw, save yourself and your opponent the pain. If you do insist on battling it out the one who stalls best will win, but it’ll take FOREVER.

    Moonstalker
    Matchup Quality: Very Hard
    Tactics: Moon shuts down your attacks pretty easily, and he can shield lots of heavy hitters (including major threats like Behemoth, Colossus and Tiger Wulf). This is a control game, and you need to keep your heal going.

    Millstalker…. Fuggedaboutit. Offer Draw. Do it.

    Conclusion

    Well, I’ve honoured my promise to myself and done a Wulven hero breakdown. Darkclaw is a dangerous prospect now because it’s so much easier for him to set up due to Blood Moon, and he gives a lot of heroes a tough time. He is not easy to pilot however, and most losses will be due not to the deck but inexperience.
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  5. #5
    Senior Member Jo3yb0i's Avatar
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    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..... Not again. =P
    "Try and try until you die...or succeed...whichever comes first"

    Jo3yb0i - Knight of Dark and Light
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    Greatness, Reborn


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  6. #6
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jo3yb0i View Post
    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..... Not again. =P
    Believe me, I didn't want to.... but I had to do Wulven eventually!
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  7. #7
    Senior Member Jo3yb0i's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Preybird View Post
    Believe me, I didn't want to.... but I had to do Wulven eventually!
    Seriously I think you' ll do all twenty hero breakdowns before WC 2013, PFG starts or anything Wulven is suppose to do. Great job as always. Peanut Butter =]
    "Try and try until you die...or succeed...whichever comes first"

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  8. #8
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jo3yb0i View Post
    Seriously I think you' ll do all twenty hero breakdowns before WC 2013, PFG starts or anything Wulven is suppose to do. Great job as always. Peanut Butter =]
    We shall see. One more till I'm at the half way point!
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  9. #9
    Senior Member darkCROSSBOW's Avatar
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    Nice work! Loving these Breakdowns ^_^
    IGN AA1 DARKCROSSBOW dont call me a noob, say something that I dont know of

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  10. #10
    Senior Member araedros's Avatar
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    insightfull... can't wait for you to do a Zhanna one

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