Night Hunter

Night Hunter (ナイトハンター Naito Hantā) is a fan-made clan from the Dark Zone nation, specializing in weakening units and shutting down the opponent's vanguard.

Background
Power is meaningless.

Long ago, there were many clans of shadow warriors inhabiting United Sanctuary. Most of them opposed the Sanctuary, and they threatened to tear the nascent nation apart. In response, a group of Cosmo Dragons descended from the heavens and founded Guardian Force, the homeland defense army of United Sanctuary, and they hunted the dark warriors down. Some of them yielded, and they joined Gold Paladin and Guardian Force's black ops; despite their service, they remain second-class citizens to this day. Some fled to the Dragon Empire, where they joined Murakumo's ninja clans.

Some of them fled south, to Dark Zone.

This group of dark warriors was led by a dragon known as "Abyss Shatter Dragon". Abyss Shatter Dragon was a typical power-hungry abyss dragon. He believed that the strong should dominate the weak, and that the Sanctuary coddled its weak citizens, which would make the Sanctuary weak and vulnerable in the long run. Yet, despite the weakness he perceived in the Sanctuary, they still managed to defeat him. Thus he began resenting his own weakness.

When Abyss Shatter Dragon left for Dark Zone, he expected a land that followed his ideals, a place where the strong thrive and the weak die. He got exactly that, but what he saw disgusted him.

Yes, the demon warlords of the Dark Irregulars as well as the assassins of Pale Moon were strong. However, they achieved that power at the cost of everything else. They cared not for order, history, wisdom, education, science, everything that comes with a lawful, orderly society, except if it incidentally supported their ambitions. What was left was a land where life was without meaning. Abyss Shatter Dragon despised the Sanctuary, but at least they had their priorities straight!

As a result, Abyss Shatter Dragon assembled his clan of dark warriors, and vowed to carve order out of this lawless land.

Abyss Shatter understood that while the demon lords had raw power that exceeded his own, they had many blind spots. They were strong in some areas, but weak in many others, all caused by their blind pursuit of power. They could be tricked and deceived, or overwhelmed by unconventional tactics or unexpected weaknesses. Abyss Shatter worked every day to become not just stronger, but smarter and wiser, and the warriors under him did the same. They abandoned their swords and heavy armor and began equipping themselves with stakes, guns, light armor, and esoteric magics. They became vampire hunters and demon slayers, and they began fighting with them for control of the night. As hunters in the night, they branded themselves "Night Hunter."

As part of their unconventional tactics, Night Hunter began collecting the weak and downtrodden, people from all over Dark Zone who were oppressed by the demon lords and barely survived the harshness of this land. Where the demons and vampires saw just prey, Abyss Shatter saw teachers, historians, scientists, scholars, mages, people that, if given the opportunity, could become something great. Each person was a resource, Abyss Shatter believed, and Abyss Shatter knew how to make the most of that resource. Thus Night Hunter built orderly towns and villages, heavily defended by their dark warriors, where the weak could contribute to the strength of the strong.

After a few decades or centuries of this, Abyss Shatter found that he mellowed out. He no longer despised weakness, nor did he relentlessly pursue power for its own sake. Now, Abyss Shatter believed that power was fundamentally worthless. Power, pursued for its own sake, was meaningless; not only was power easily brought down, as the many dead demon lords killed by Night Hunter could attest, it made life meaningless, and blinded one to their true potential. Abyss Shatter had also grown to truly care for the people under his rule; no longer did he see weak and fragile creatures, but intelligent and wise people who, through their efforts, helped Night Hunter stand head and shoulders above the rest of Dark Zone. Satisfied with what he had built, Abyss Shatter stepped down from his leadership position, believing that a fresh viewpoint was needed, although he still continued to serve as an advisor. Later, he disappeared entirely, to parts unknown.

Night Hunter accumulated a sizable power base over thousands of years. While they could never exterminate the demon lords due to their strength, neither could the demon lords extinguish them, as they were too clever, too wary. They were locked in a stalemate.

When the Great Flood came, the demon lords' lands were swamped, and their infrastructure was ruined. Night Hunter took advantage of this opportunity, having recovered from the flood more quickly, and began to hunt down the demon lords more openly and frequently than before. Eventually, they were contacted by those responsible for the flood, Deep Thought, who saw in Night Hunter the adaptable qualities that their god was searching for. Distrusting them, but in need of allies, Night Hunter warily allied themselves with these denizens of the deep.

Playstyle
Night Hunter is a control-leaning clan that specializes in shutting down the opponent's vanguard.

Night Hunter can disrupt the opponent's vanguard in a great variety of ways. Their primary way of doing so is curse, which curses the opponent's vanguard circle so that units on it get [Power]-10000 during your opponent's next turn (which sticks even if the opponent rides or Strides a different unit). Night Hunter is also capable of removing or limiting the abilities of your opponent's vanguard, reducing their drive checks, preventing them from Striding or punishing them for doing so, or even outright retiring vanguards. (Night Hunter should make Kagero and Dimension Police cry in the same way Link Joker makes Aqua Force and Neo Nectar cry.)

As Night Hunter decreases the power of the opponent's vanguard, it becomes more vulnerable to attacks, giving Night Hunter its primary means of offense. To capitalize on the opponent's weakened vanguard, Night Hunter is capable of multi-attacking with standing and back-row attacking, although not as much as clans that are more dedicated to offense.

While their primary focus is on debilitating the opponent's vanguard, Night Hunter can also debilitate the opponent's rear-guards to a lesser extent. They have access to many abilities that weaken and remove rear-guards, including putting the opponent's units into their soul, power reduction, ability removal, and replacing your opponent's units with weaker units. Night Hunter also has a great deal of control over the opponent's soul, able to put units into the soul or remove cards from the soul, which makes matches with their nemesis, Dark Irregulars, very interesting.

Races

 * Abyss Dragon
 * Angel
 * Battleroid
 * Cosmo Dragon
 * Dark Elf
 * Demon
 * Elf
 * Gearoid
 * Ghost
 * Goblin
 * Human
 * Insect
 * Skeleton
 * Succubus
 * Vampire
 * Warbeast
 * Workeroid
 * Zombie

Sub-clans and archetypes

 * Punisher
 * Witch

List of Night Hunter cards
Movement from the other wiki is incomplete; cards can currently be viewed here. Some cards on that page may differ from their versions here; the ones on this wiki are the definitive versions.