Today’s Team: Bovine Gaze
H/P Macabre Marionette (Macabre Maraca, Death and Decay, Bone Barrage)
H/P Pygmy Cow (Stampede, Feed, Udder Destruction)
P/S Ominous Flame (Spiritfire Bolt, Scorched Earth, Foreboding Curse)
Rationale:
I was battling a lot with my deadly teams, especially Rich Girls so I decided to atone by making a team without any top-tier pets. On this team I’ve been staring with the Macabre Marionette using Bone Barrage and Death and Decay then either swapping to the critter for Stampede or the elemental for Foreboding Curse. Both of those move will amplify the damage from the puppet’s field effects. The Pygmy Cow has been incredible with bot Feed and Udder Destructions doing massive damage along with the damage debuffs. If I really wanted to make this team great I could replace the Ominous Flame with an imp. This team has gone 6-1 already so there’s not yet a need to bring in imp reinforcements.
The Opposing Team:
P/B Firewing
P/S Puddle Terror
S/S Sun Sproutling
The Battle:
Sunny day, yuck. The healing turned out to be less of a factor than I thought it would. I made a dumb move (again!) yet I still managed to win. Sentences seem hard at the moment, so I’ll do it like this:
Macabre Marionette vs. Puddle Terror
Round 1: Water Jet / Bone Barrage
Round 2: Water Jet / Death and Decay
Round 3: swap to Ominous Flame / Water Jet (oops)
Round 4: Foreboding Curse / Dive
Round 5: swap to Pygmy Cow / Dive hits
Round 6: Udder Destruction / Water Jet
Round 7: Feed (Puddle Terror dies, Firewing in)
Round 8: swap to Macabre Marionette / Alpha Strike
Round 9: Sunlight / Bone Barrage
Round 10: Healing Flame / Macabre Maraca
Round 11: Alpha Strike / Bone Barrage
Round 12: Alpha Strike / Death and Decay (MM to 0 health)
Round 13: Alpha Strike / Bone Barrage (Ominous Flame in)
Round 14: Spiritfire Bolt (Firewing dies, Sun Sproutling in)
Round 15: Photosynthesis / Foreboding Curse
Round 16: Scorched Earth / Fist of the Forest
Round 17: Spiritfire Bolt / Lash
Round 18: Spiritfire Bolt (Sun Sproutling dies)
Foreboding Curse was very useful.
Every now and then I collect some data to keep things interesting. I’ve been keeping win/loss records for all my teams over the past few days. Here are some screenshots from my “general” and “deadly teams” tabs on Rematch. That’s not a typo, I have played Rich Girls twenty-six times. Blame all the Teroclaw Hatchlings and Ore Eaters that I’ve been encountering.
Latest Tweets
This seems like a team I would like to play. And I have been trying to think of a fun team to use my cow on, so I will give it a go later.
I too have enjoyed playing Rich Girls, more then I should. Which actually brings up another question I have been having about the Bone Serpent. I remember in your original analysis that you felt the H/H would be a better pet. Yesterday I finally got a P/S version (I have been using S/S since I have gotten three from the daily bags) and enjoy it more then the S/S. The pure speed version doesn’t get any advantages from the speed in my opinion, so the extra power ends up being useful. But considering the number of battles you have put in – how do you feel the H/H plays out?
My other question about Rich girls is the pairing of Junglebeak. It is a great pet, but I was wondering if you felt that using the Dread Hatchling (in a 2/1/1) configuration might be equally useful. You lose the heal/crit buff, but gain another weather change and a Magic attack to cover another pet family.
I love the cow too, and whenever I see Discodoggy run it, I give it a try too.
But it always ends up feeling too slow.
I have been trying the dread hatchling to replace other fliers myself a while now.
its risky if you have to swap to it, but its strong if you do not.
Personally in my own ‘rich girls’ team (i just call it darkness) i have been running other fliers all the time because i often end up having or wanting to heal during darkness and thats suboptimal.
I find the flamering moth a strong contender but since the sprout can also hurt elementals.
i do like the original bird in that it can nocstrike elementals though.
Tried the cow a few more times, but it’s just a slow Xu-Fu sort of >.<
I haven’t used the other breeds extensively so I can’t share my experience with them. With the H/H working so well I haven’t had any desire to change breeds.
I tried the Dread Hatchling out, I can see it doing well. I’ll run it some more and let you know how it goes.
Interesting, I’ve always played the S/S in my similar team. I shall go try out the H/H; due to ability lockout and that leading to forced swaps, the H/H may be more valuable.
I’ll start keeping track of win-loss records as well, I also renamed my Darkness team to Rich Girls in honor of this silly team of yours
I even changed my preferred flyer, haha 
PS. While I don’t usually give my teams funny names – maybe I should – you give them too funny a names sometimes.
For instance your Geargrinders and Meadowburner are just one pet different, I usually sort those into the same team name, as varieties of
I often have themes that perhaps only make sense to me. For instance, Rich Girls is from a sequence of Bone Serpent teams named from the chorus of this song:
Been doing a bunch of battles with the Frostwolf Ghostpup, and it seems that if you run a critter next to it on your team, even if the enemy does AoE attacks, you’re usually better off with Refuge over Haunting Song.
1-0 Pupling #2 #2
Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling (Breath, Lightning, Decoy)
Frostwolf Ghostpup (Scratch, Refuge, Ghostly Bite)
Nuts (Scratch, Crouch, Nut Barrage)
the team is fairly sturdy. I fought a team that actually used the Cinder Kitten, and I was stupid enough to not Decoy first so its Incinerate hit me. That single Incinerate almost killed the MPD entirely 😛 (And also severely hurt the pup, that thing hurts!)
And yes, I know I use the corny MPD. And also the corny Ghostpup I guess. Ugh, I ran dirty top tier pets. At least Nuts isn’t even high tier
And at least I use Refuge I guess, I can almost feel better, not)
About half of all the pets in Discodoggy’s screenshot are from the top tier list.
Not too horrible I guess
Sibel
No need to read too much into Disco’s screenshot choices…just appreciate the aesthetic appeal. It’s not representative of pets he promotes or uses over others. Even a casual visitor to this blog will see the diverse range of combos explored
Secondly, it’s your prerogative of course, but I wouldn’t get too distraught over whether or not you field currently OP or widely used pets. No apologies or shame needed IMO. These pets get used because they bring victories. At the same time, many who visit this blog like to try new and inventive ways to win, which can be even more challenging and rewarding.
How come your replies usually don’t appear as reply to the relevant post, but instead just hang on the bottom of the page?
And I just think it’s nice to think about, considering this blog is probably read more than you’d think from the comments, and Disco him/herself frequently comments on running into self-developed teams
(And thus it does represent the choices of others as well)
Plus, Disco should function as a great example to us all 😉 Either way, it was just to saliently remark that Disco fills teams with roughly 50% of the top-tier list. The implications for pet battling? That’s what the comment system is for
I do consider some pets more overpowered than others, things like the Fiendish Imp and the Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling are nigh unstoppable from doing their thing. There is a reason why Decoy-breaking moves have become so commonplace.
But because they do so much, they do often allow poor secondary and tertiary pet choices to flourish or have a more fun effect (Although this would be more consistent with running 33% top-tier pets).
I don’t neccesarily agree with the sentiment that these pets bring about victories. It’s more than the opponents are likely to run at least one or two, and if you do not have something in your arsenal, *then* you are going to lose (for sure).
It’s a bit analogous to bringing a knife to a fight. And then it turns out the opponent brought a gun.
(And even with all these Decoy-counters, the MPD is *still* an extremely strong pet because it can do it’s 700 damage, and then swap out for ‘free’ again, or if you cannot stop the Decoy, you get set back a virtual turn in average damage output.)
Random information tidbit: Shellshield (as on a S/S Ore Eater) works extremely well against an Arcane Winds-ed Mana Surge. About 250 damage remains when it goes through the Shellshield, pretty much negating it.
How do you get that scorecard setup? I thought that maybe it came from Rematch, but I just downloaded it and I don’t see anything like that. Would be nice to keep records like that.
It is Rematch. I manually rename each team after I play it. It seems like a hassle but it really isn’t that hard to do.