Analysis of Moonstone's Recent Black Buff - Is She Now a Keeper?

Moonstone is my favorite character, and when I heard she was being buffed, I was really excited. However, I still admit that she still isn't a high tier character.

 Her black is cheaper, which is the most important improvement. The previous black move was one of my favorites, because it was so unique and produced so many interesting and fun results. The fact that it was also a single target stun was the icing on the cake. It just cost way too much. If they reduced the cost some, I think you are on the right track. Instead, we get another "answer to enemy special tiles" move. These used to be rare (basically Captain America's overwrite, then we added Loki and Daredevil) but now it seems like every new character can either destroy or steal enemy special tiles. I guess added Moonstone to this list gives another option, but I don't think its that special anymore. As for the black power firing itself, its better, for sure, but I personally prefer moves that destroy enemy special tiles and cause damage based on that over moves that steal the tiles. I do think the cost is a little more in line with expectations though.

 Moonstone's red remains much like her old black: A potentially awesome move ruined by its cost. Her red has the potential to be a beastly nuke, it can OHKO pretty much anyone if the board is set up. The problem is that it has a fairly high cost to charge, and then further requires even more red tiles to sit on the board for damage. This makes it one of the slowest moves in the game. You could possibly charge with the new silver magneto purple, I guess...

 Moonstone's purple, on the other hand, I think is one of the better powers in the game. It is a great counter to hero character's that place countdowns or strong special tiles. You can completely nullify something like a Magneto countdown or Sentry's Sacrifice attack tile with it. I always thought this was cool. When her purple has no targets, it does solid single target damage and has a great potential to set up cascades. This has always been my preferred use, and I still think it fits that role spectacularly. In fact, in my view, unless the special tiles is particularly strong, I don't think Moonstone's purple is an efficient use of AP to remove. A regular Daken tile, for example, doesn't warrant using Gravity Warp. If you have a Falcon boosted Daken tile, that changes things, or if you are going to pull one of Blade's attack tiles into a cascade with others, maybe you can make the argument. This reveals the real power of her new black, it has solid synergy with purple. It can either completely eliminate the special tiles and let her purple function as damage, or it can at least reduce the number of enemy special tiles and make Gravity Warp much more predictable. The counter to Moonstone has always been more than one special tile, her new black really helps here.

 As a cover to keep or toss, her HP isn't great... but she is frequently boosted and her covers are somewhat easy to come by as frequent progression rewards for both PvP and PvE events. If you are a beginning 2 star player, she might be the first character that you can get a full set of covers for. She also is really great against 2 star Daken, the bane of the beginner player. However, you will soon find that there are easily 5 other 2 stars that vastly outrank her, so if you are conscious of your total roster slots, you will probably want to replace her. CStorm, Daken, Ares, OBW, and Thor are all objectively stronger, I'd say Wolvie is a little more well rounded (plus his heal helps budget players).