Overview and Disclaimers
Godtear is a game about interactions between your models and your opponent’s models. Knowing what matchups are likely to create favorable interactions is a key part of mastering the game. In this article,I will attempt to break down what I consider to be the favorable and unfavorable matchups for each Shaper champion. Please also check out my matchup evaluation for Guardians, my matchup evaluation for Maelstroms, and my matchup evaluation for Slayers.
Matchups are the thing that I change my mind about the most. There are dizzying amount of different matchups which can occur given the 22 different champions currently available. I have not played them all. I don’t have that kind of time, unfortunately.
Some matchups I have played often enough to be fairly confident of how they will play out (Raith v. Keera, for example) whereas others I have not played at all. There is going to be some educated guessing in this article. Please let me know if you disagree with what I’ve got here; you may very well be right and pointing it out to me will improve my play.
I tried to find 4-5 matchups which I consider to be the most favorable and 4-5 which I consider to be the least favorable for each champion. This is arbitrary, so there are going to be some close calls. Note that this will not be consistent across champions. That is, me saying that Champion A has a favorable matchup into Champion B does not necessarily mean that I am also saying that Champion B has an unfavorable matchup into champion A. This is because B might have five matchups more unfavorable than A while A does not have five matchups more favorable than B. It’s all relative, I’m saying.
The Shaper Matchups
Nia is great for many reasons, but one of the biggest and most underrated is that her followers are armor 4. Blackjaw, Jeen, and Luella really struggle to KO armor 4 followers and thus to score outside the banner game (at which Nia excels). Nia also has lots of game into Rattlebone since the witchy orc relies on spreading boons and blights which Nia can simply copy.
Lorsann and Peet are tough for our girl because Nia struggles to hit high dodge targets. Both of these nimble slayers can get to Nia's banner, avoid her attacks, and then kill her. Titus and Kailinn are rough matchups for Nia because they actually can score on the Quartzlings. This has the obvious benefit of scoring steps, but it also takes away's Nia's biggest advantage: her bonus action.
Ah the Soggy Dragon of Doom. Remember that these matchup evaluations are relative to Raith's other matchups. Arguably, there could be lots and lots of green here. However, I do think that the combination of long threat ranges and lots of damage dice can gain the upper hand against the Puddle Serpent. Keera and Kailinn certainly bring that to the table. Keera will struggle to get to Raith's banner, and Kailinn is literally unable to crush it, but both of these ladies can KO Raith no matter where he runs. Doing that often enough can get you the edge in this matchup. Grimgut can seal off landing spots that Raith might want to teleport to with his splashlings. Styx's ultimate actually disrupts Raith quite a bit since it can rob him of the ideal opportunity to use Tsunami.
Some folks might think Lorsann is good into Raith because she can Snipe Splashlings and hit Drippy Drake with Mystic Arrows. This, in my experience, is not how it works. I find that Raith usually plants a banner somewhere absurd and then comes in from nowhere to simply assasinate poor, fragile Lorsann. Mourneblade relies on denying advance actions, but Raith does not really care about those. Rodhri may seem like a good matchup into Raith because of Unyielding. It's a trap. Raith can still get to Rhodri's banners pretty easily and a Tsunami usually dissolves Rhodri's whole defensive structure. Finally, poor sweet Nia can't protect her banner from Raith, gets KOd by him, and always has her Quartzlings Tided out of position for Rolling Stones. Hey, Raith is a beast.
Rattlebone is not great overall, in my humble opinion. She does do a few things well, though. She can operate is kind of a budget Grimgut with her Call Totems ability. This lets her block off slow champions like Rhodri while also using his low dodge stat unleash Hex Bolts which blight his low movement stat. Although Finvarr is not slow, he can also be frustrated when enveloped in hordes of followers. Morrigan really needs boons, and Rattlebone can negate them with blights. Keera needs to get dragons adjacent to their targets, but Rattlebone can potentially deny this with a combination of called totems and Cursed Ground (maybe I'm reaching on that one).
Blackjaw and Jeen just love soft followers to shred, and Rattlebone offers them. Titus will also feast on Hexlings, but he can also move them all out of the way with I'll Kill You All. Rattlebone has no way of dealing with Knightshades. She can't move them, she can't move in ways that aren't advance actions, she can't escape.
Shayle loves to mess with folks who have low dodge. Raith can be separated from his Splashlings and the Young Dragons from Keera by repeated Earthquakes targeting dodge 2. Raith also has his boon game handily countered by Shayle who can steal or erase the boons. Morrigan suffers from this even more horribly than Raith does, and her Cold Bones are also easy targets for relocation. Mourbelade and his Knightshades are equally vulnerable, and the poor Knightshades (like the Cold Bones) can only move at half the speed they are Earthquaked. Helena is a somewhat different case. She needs to be on an objective hex, and Landslide is great at moving people off of the spots they would prefer to be on.
Lorsann, Rangosh, Titus (when targeted by a follower), and Peet all rock a high dodge stat which can keep them relatively safe from Earthquake. at dodge 4, it's a 45% shot. For Peet's dodge 5, it's 20%. Lorsann, Rangosh, and Peet also kill Shayle pretty easily. Titus kills both Landslide and Shayle. Kailinn loves to harvest a large follower like Landslide with her ultimate and is simply so fast that she can recover from being Earthquaked. She also kills Shayle well, though not as easily as those with higher accuracy attacks.
Our newest addition to the Shaper ranks is fun and powerful. He loves to face off against models which are tough to kill because he can simply KO them at will with his ultimate, no questions asked. Finvarr, Halftusk, and Rodhri are usually not worth KOing, but Styx does not care. Halftusk and Rodhri are a bit slow to recover as well. Raith is also tough to KO, but he hates the Reaping even more because it can suddenly rob him of good opportunities to use Tsunami. A well-timed Reaping will force the Liquid Lizard to spend his turn simply recovering instead of chaining together a teleport with an ultimate to truly mess up everyone's life.
Styx cannot do much about Helena being on a hex. He can, at most, pull her towards himself. It's not great. Helena also has no banner for the Abyssal Hounds to Tear to Shreds, so Styx might end up frustrated by her. Kailinn, Luella, and Titus will harvest the Hounds efficiently, both scoring lots of steps and keeping banners safe from the poor doggos.
Final Thoughts
Shapers are some of the strongest champions in Godtear. Don't leave home without one. I sort of default to always having a shaper. If I'm not binging one, there is usually a specific reason why. They can support really any style of play and, depending on which one, contribute to slaying, banner protection, or banner denial. Or all three if it's Raith.
I know that these tables are easy to pick apart. As I type this, I am second guessing several of these matchups, but hopefully this snapshot of my thinking has at least stimulated your own thought process about which Shaper to take in a given situation. Truthfully, though, they are all rock solid (except Rattlebone), so take whichever one is fun for you. Or just take Raith. Raith is always impressive.
Thanks for reading, and have fun!
Comments