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 Slayer champion. Please also check out my matchup evaluation for Guardians as well as my matchup evaluation for Maelstroms!
Matchups are the thing that I change my mind about the most. There are dizzying amounts of different matchups which can occur given the 20 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 (Titus v. Rangosh, 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 Slayer Matchups
Man, do I love to play Slayers. Their aggressive style really makes me feel like I'm in the driver's seat. The dice may or may not cooperate, but when I play a Slayer, I feel like I am dictating to my opponent where they can and cannot safely be.
Slayers, like Maelstroms, can be selective about their prey. Rangosh would probably go into lower dodge targets whereas Lorsann would prefer those with low armor. Still, I find myself selecting slayers early in draft formats because find that not having one around makes my opponent too comfortable
So let's dive in! Alphabetical order, so first up is...
Oh, my queen! I have not written about my love of this champion enough on this blog. She is just fantastic. Right up there with the 'Gosh and better into different things. Perhaps she deserves an entire blog post unto herself in the near future...
Keera, along with Rangosh, is one of the premier heavy hitters in the game. She brings large followers, which are nearly always inefficient to kill because of their large health pools. Yes, the Young Dragons have awful defensive stats, but 5 wounds is comparable to some champions. Attacking the Dragons is usually bad because Keera does not lose much attack efficiency when one dies, and the action economy to steps ratio involved in KOing a dragon is tough. This is a long-winded way of saying that Keera likes to fight Maelstroms. She can usually kill them somewhat easily, and they usually cannot score enough to keep up. The exception is Grimgut, who can hold his own by retaliating at range with Retchlings and using his one, high value Nom Nom somewhat efficiently into Dragons. Keera also likes to fight Ratih because her incredible threat ranges and high damage output allow her to punish Soggy Smaug anywhere he goes.
Keera does not like to see a few of the Guardians. She struggles into Mourneblade because she has no way to escape the Knightshades and her high value attacks are wasted on the Undying one. She's a bit slow, so she'll struggle to get to the places that Mourneblade and Finvarr can put banners. Speaking of Finvarr, his statline is set up very well to resist Keera's attacks because his combination of high dodge and high armor are enough to mute Keera's two very specialized attacks. Shayle can really mess with Keera because it is not hard for Landslide to scatter the dragons outside of Keera's By My Command range.
Lorsann's Snipe brings the most native accuracy dice of any attack in the game, so she likes to tag champions with high dodge and low armor. Therefore, Peet and Shayle make nice targets. Lorsann's shoot and scoot can also help her stay away from Landslide while her high dodge makes it hard to hit her with an Earthquake. Lorsann can auto-wound Mourneblade from long range, which will annoy him, and has the speed to get to his banners, which will ruin his day. Lorsann is also good at killing Titus because her ultimate can take out 40% of his health pool reliably and instantly.
Lorsann struggles into accurate attackers (like herself). The Shield Maidens have an easy time KOing Lorsann while the Mistwood Rangers are essentially the ideal target for Luella's Arc Lightning. Morrigan and Maxen also bring lots of ranged accuracy with which to tag the prancing elf lady. Helena is tough for Lorsann because, while Lorsann can KO her, Lorsann cannot otherwise move Helena off of scoring zones and also cannot bring her powerful banner crushing capabilities to bear.
Shotgun Max, the new kid on the block, brings a unique set of slaying tools to the mix. Maxen into Mourneblade is, I think, the hardest counter in the entire game. It's like Lorsann except the autowound also removes the banner. It's atrocious for Mourneblade, even on Quest. Maxen also likes to target Finvarr because his balanced attacks can chew through Finvarr's balanced defenses and, again, remove the banner no matter where the tricky guardian may have hidden it. Max is also good at taking out Lorsann and Peet, two models which hide behind high dodge to stay alive. These two do not like an Eagle Eye. Even though Maxen likes to get up close and personal, these two have so little health and armor that Max's shotgun feels like a sniper rifle when targeting them at range.
Maxen will struggle into Helena because she has no banner to Scavenge. Halftusk is simply too durable for Maxen to KO him efficiently enough, and the Froglodytes will usually be fast enough to keep the slow dwarf off the objective hexes. Jeen does not care about Scavenger since she's often not planting a banner anyway, and her two polearn sweeps can score in bunches off of the tasty Gearhawks even though they'll be spread out. Rangosh can simply KO Maxen more efficiently than Maxen can KO him. Maxen is not actually a ranged character; he wields a video game shotgun. Maxen needs to come into Rangosh to KO him, yet Maxen cannot survive coming into Rangosh.
Ok, so Morrigan is just awful unless her team can give her the right boons. This assumes that she has the right team composition to give her the support she needs.
Morrigan, like Lorsann, has an accurate range 3 attack, so she likes high dodge, low armor targets like Peet and Lorsann. With the right Boons, Morrigan can be resistant to Keera's specialized attacks and can retaliate against the Dragon Princess by racing over at speed 4; Keera does not have the board presence to block off attackers very well. Finally, Morrigan loves to fight Grimgut because she's got a Snowball's Chance in Antarctica of one-shotting the fat bastard.
Morrigan will struggle into Mourneblade because his armor keeps him safe from her Icebolts and she does not have great answers to the Knightshades beyond Frosty Glance. Finvarr can move aside her wall of Cold Bones and is hard for Morrigan to KO. Titus well feast on the Cold Bones despite their decent armor. Although Shayle is a good Icebolt target, he has the ability to steal and negate Morrigan's boons while easily moving around the Cold Bones.
The Beast, the Cow, the Legend. What a boss. If you have five health, stay the f#%* away from Rangosh! Titus, Shayle, Jeen, y'all are gettin' mashed! Splat! Big damage is the best way to deal with Raith, so Raith too! Get mashed, stupid wet lizard man!
Rangosh does not like Mourneblade for the same reasons that Keera doesn't like him, although the Bandits' ability to Ambush in the plot phase does give the 'Gosh a bit more game into the Knightshades. I recently learned in a tournament game that Rangosh actually would rather not fight Halftusk. It's maybe an even bout, but the big troll ahs the accuracy to hurt Rangosh and the staying power to survive a turn toe to toe with him. Grimgut can also really frustrate Rangosh; there is nothing worse than using Whiplash or Jawbreaker on a Retchling. Luella is just durable enough to hang in there and harvest bandits while the Shield Maidens use their accurate attacks on the big guy.
Peet can get to Shayle pretty easily and murder the geomancer even more easily once he arrives. landslide will not have much luck trying hit dodge 5 with an earthquake. Peet does well into Grimgut because he can Leap over the snot wall and is not particularly afraid of the somewhat inaccurate Retchlings. Peet is an expert banner crusher, so he can track down Finvarr and Mourneblade's banners. The sneaky goblin can auto-wound Mourneblade, whcih is nice. Peet is actually pretty good at KOing Finvarr because Gang Boss makes him Peet accurate and the hit effect of Backstab ignores armor.
Peet hates accurate attackers hwo can quickly drain his small health pool, so Luella, Lorsann, and Morrigan all present problems. The Sneaky Stabbers are the easy prey for Luella and her high health pool will be tough for Peet to handle. Peet will really struggle to KO Halftusk because the big troll because Peet deals damage somewhat incrementally. Halftusk will just regenerate the chip damage and punch back very accurately. Lorsann is a good target for Peet, but Peet is an even better target for Lorsann.
Final Thoughts
Slayers are dope. Play them. Heck, play two. one-shotting champions is hard, but two or three-shotting them is pretty reliable. The Slayer game is subtler than it seems, but oh-so satisfying. Dice will dice, but over the course of a Godtear game, if you're putting your Slayers in good positions, they will come through for you. Slayers are a surprisingly fragile on the whole, so be careful before putting them into someone who can hit back. However, they are also surprisingly fast, so they can usually threaten banners as well as champions.
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 Slayers to take in a given situation.
Thanks for reading, and have fun!