September 1, 2014

Today’s Team: A New Hope (Slash edition)
S/S Fiendish Imp (Burn, Immolation, Nether Gate)
P/P Warbot (Missile, Minefield, Extra Plating)
P/P Sen’Jin Fetish (Shadow Slash, Wild Magic, Sear Magic)

Rationale:
This is a modification to A New Hope in case I run into any idols. At some point I changed my preferred move set on the mask from Shadow Slash and Immolate to Flame Breath and Wild Magic. In this case I’m keeping the Wild Magic to help the imp’s Immolation but I’m ditching Flame Breath for Shadow Slash. I think the Warbot and imp combo is good enough to be able to tweak the mask away from an all-comers build to a specific idol counter. Against valks I’ll start with the Warbot, against adders there will be some head games involved.

Concerns:
Whenever I run a Minefield team I’m always afraid I’ll run into Lil’ Ragnaros. Unsavory battles will manipulate the bug with undead and end of turn moves.

The Opposing Team:
H/H Unborn Val’kyr
H/P Ruby Droplet
S/S Jademist Dancer
Sometimes the queue is just mean to you.

The Battle:
This was a big bummer because I thought I was countered too hard to win, made a valiant effort to defy the odds, then lost on a miss. Rather than start with the Warbot against the valk like I originally planned I started with the imp instead. My opponent was nice enough to let me cast Nether Gate on the Unborn Val’kyr to force in the Jademist Dancer. It laid down a Geyser so after I got Immolation going I swapped to the mask. Thanks to an important cleanse the mask beat the Jademist Dancer but couldn’t do much on its undead round thanks to the bubble. I brought the Warbot in to lay down mines, then brought in the imp to refresh Immolation and force the valk in. I went back to the Warbot to kill the valk (which had UA rather than Haunt), then had the Ruby Droplet to deal with. The Warbot did much better than expected and I thought I had a chance. If I could win the coin flip the Ruby Droplet would be in kill range for the imp, even after the weak Absorb. I won the coin flip, but failed to hit, which meant the Ruby Droplet was out of kill range and could slowly drain the imp. I could have tried to force the imp versus Jademist Dancer better since both other pets countered the imp well, but I didn’t want to lose a turn from the Geyser. I think I played it ok.