February 14, 2015

Five Wins Or Bust
I think I’ll make all new teams today, which means five wins might be harder to come by than usual. I hope I’m not not dooming myself to a long, long day of blogging.

Battle 1: Soft Rabbit, Warm Rabbit
Alpine Hare, Fiendish Imp, Son Of Sethe
vs. Darkmoon Zeppelin, Lil’ Bling, Ominous Flame

021415BYou know what’s missing from my meta? Rabbits! I don’t see many of these critters anymore. While their low health is concerning in the current AoE meta, they will do well against all of the undead pets that never fail to appear. I’ve also been encountering a lot of Lil’ Ragnaros teams, which the bunny counters quite well. This entire team is composed of low health pets so I was relieved not to see any of the usual AoE suspects. I countered this team really well with my imp against the two mechs and the rabbit against the Decoy and elemental damage. In addition to all that the zep was level 24, so I was able to cruise to an easy victory. Hey, maybe I won’t be here all day. And for the record, screenshots of rabbits always sort of freak me out. New models please!
Record: 1-0

Battle 2: Eat To The Beat
Alpine Hare, Ancient Nest Guardian, Ore Eater
vs. Skunk, Anubisath Idol, Arcane Eye

021415AThis was one extremely annoying battle. The skunk was the first enemy pet out. Thanks to four misses caused by Stench it took me fourteen rounds of my mech and Ore Eater to take it out. I was behind when the idol came in. I think I would have lost if the idol had Deflection because I ended up doing a lot of damage with my rabbit’s Burrow. I was swapping the rabbit in and out with the Ancient Nest Guardian to avoid the strong damage from Rupture. After the idol went down the Arcane Eye was a piece of cake. I better get out of my garrison so all the screen shots don’t look the same.
Record: 2-0

Battle 3: Die Young, Stay Wormy
Maggot, Ancient Nest Guardian, Ore Eater
vs. Emerald Proto-Whelp, Tiny Harvester, Clockwork Gnome

021415CI had a brain fart and tried to replace my rabbit with another critter, the Maggot. That would have been great if the Maggot was actually a critter and not a beast. Oops. With a beast versus these two mechs I was worried. My opponent started with the EPW against my Ore Eater. “Cool, I forced a swap on the first round” was what I was thinking since Body Slam would pound the dragon so hard. Except my opponent didn’t swap, the dragon stayed in.

The EPW was hanging in there better than I thought until a crit for around 900 killed it. The Tiny Harvester was next up, I brought my beast in because it would have to face the mechs eventually. After a Metal Fist then Demolish miss my opponent fled. I’m not sure why, perhaps they were peeved at the untimely death of their dragon after the crit. I guess it’s not so hard to win battles with new teams when you include an Ore Eater on your new teams. It’s surely a top tier pet at the moment, and will still be at least a high tier pet if/when Shell Armor receives an appropriate nerf. Just so you know I’m waiting until 6.1 drops before putting any 6.0 pets on the top tier list (with the exception of the Bronze Whelpling).
Record: 3-0

Battle 4: Cornish Wreckers
Cornish Rex Cat, Ancient Nest Guardian, Yu’la
vs. Dread Hatchling, Alpine Hare, Unborn Val’kyr

021415DI tried something a little more challenging this time, a team without any top pets. I lost. I really want to lose graciously but there were a few things that annoyed me in this battle. First off, I find it annoying how some health regeneration moves and the undead racial interact together. The language on Devour and Ravage is “if the user kills an enemy with Devour/Ravage they restore 541 health”. I understand that you aren’t “killing” an undead pet, but do undead pets really need this nuance to be a part of their already powerful racial? I sure could have used that 541 health when I took out the valk, yet my poor kitty got nothing for it. The other thing was the jerk move that my opponent pulled at the end. My mech had about 160 unshielded health versus the 600 health rabbit. One Flurry would have surely ended the battle. Instead they prolonged the battle by casting Dodge. Either your number estimation skills are on the same level as a fourth grader or you were being a jerk. Ok, maybe they were watching television or something, I shouldn’t be so harsh. Other than those two annoying things it was fun battle. Gracious enough?
Record: 3-1

Battle 5: Oh Snap I’m A Lamer
Doom Bloom, Ghastly Kid, Mechanical Axebeak
vs. Murkalot, Alterac Brew Pup, Weebomination

021415EI returned from a long break and decided to be lame. Haunt and Consume Corpse. With the Decoy there’s even a bit of Haunt and stall, making me even lamer. Unfortuntely for me, there are people out there even lamer than myself. As if the even split AoE mechanics didn’t make these new AoE overlord pets powerful enough, this pinnacle of lamality threw in Murkalot. Murkalot’s not just a pet with an OP move, but an unobtainable pet with an OP move. Murkalot’s not just an unobtainable pet with an OP move, but an OP move that works extremely well with the AoE overlords. Lame. Even when not facing Murkalot and the overlords (which is apparently what I decided to start calling the even split AoE pets a few sentences ago) my Doom Bloom teams are not exactly the cream of the crop. Sometimes they work, but not as much as I’d like. I think I played this battle well enough, but sometimes there’s nothing you can do to pull off a win. Murkalot survived with about 600 health.
Record: 3-2

Battle 6: Breaking Sad
Teroclaw Hatchling, Blackfuse Bombling, Murkalot
vs. Zandalari Anklerender, Son Of Sethe, Clockwork Gnome

021415FDamn I’m pretty bad at pet battling these days. I named this team because I thought it would be sad to resort to Murkalot and the BFB, something that I haven’t done a lot of (if any at all). What was much more sad and horribly hilarious was the fact that I couldn’t even pull off the strategy. I thought that the Teroclaw Hatchling would make a great sweeper after the buffed Armageddon did its big damage. The big problem was that the Teroclaw Hatchling came in for the Righteous Inspiration rather than the BFB. Boy did I feel silly.

I sort of made up for it with a pretty decent ploy to waste the Touch Of The Animus. When my bird was facing the Son Of Sethe I used Dodge. It was highly unlikely that my opponent would cast Touch Of The Animus on the second round of Dodge so I swapped to my BFB. Now that it was safe to cast TOTA my opponent did, only for me to cast Armageddon on the same round. No TOTA heals for you! Was it worth it? If I would have lost the answer would have been no, but I won so the answer is yes. A good move, but that doesn’t make up for my earlier RI fail, what a noob. One more win to go but someone needs a nap.
Record: 4-2

Battle 7: Mission Of Worma
Ore Eater, Ancient Nest Guardian, Imperial Silkworm
vs. Clockwork Gnome, Son Of Sethe, Zandalari Anklerender

021415GAfter a nap I came back to face the last team that I had faced. This time I tried to make the team from Battle 3 correctly, with a critter instead of a beast. That helped a little bit against the mech I had to face, but let’s face it, the Imperial Silkworm isn’t exactly hot stuff. I did have the Ore Eater and it’s over budgeted shields to carry the critter so a win was doable. This was a fun battle that I ended up on the losing side of. I didn’t have any moments of genius to waste the TOTA like last battle so the heals were too much to deal with. The raptor was a P/P; now that I’m using the raptors more I regret giving all my non-speed breeds away to a friend. I could always pick one up on the auction house, I should get on that.
Record: 4-3

Battle 8: Kingdom Of Doing
Death Adder Hatchling, Spirit Crab, Spirit Crab
vs. Weebomination, Droplet Of Y’Shaarj, Mechanical Pandaren Drogonling

021415HNooooo! I forgot that I was going to use all new teams today. There are a few pets that I really hate losing to, the Clockwork Noob is one of them. So after my last loss I insta-queued with a team that would certainly shut down turrets. After the battle already started I realized my mistake, but now I had a chance to take out an overlord team. Could I? With two pets sitting on the back line with 1887 hp each I started with my DAH. The Droplet Of Y’Shaarj began but my opponent changed their mind with a round one swap to the MPD. That’s cool, have a Poison Fang on the house. Blinding Poison and Decoy were used on the second round. I hoped that the mech would stay in for the Decoy takedown. It did stay in so Puncture Wound took out both charges. Nice. The strong damage from the poison ticks helped take out the MPD before its Decoy was available again. By round eight the MPD was dead and the Weebomination replaced it. By round ten my opponent decided it was a no win situation and fled. What a nice way to end the day, even if I did “cheat” on this last battle by using a 5.4 team.

4 Responses to February 14, 2015

  1. Liwei says:

    Nice to see that rabbits are still useful these days. I’m surprised you rarely see them actually, given how popular AoE spam is getting. They might have low health but that doesn’t make them particularly vulnerable unless they’re sitting on the back row, after all.

    • Calerian says:

      Agreed. One of my current top teams has a rabbit. Basic Haunt and stall (s/s rabbit, ghastly kid, mechanical axebeak), but the rabbit is usually the star of the whole show. Really effective in the current meta, even with Sandstorms and far-too-powerful shields on the ore eater and hydraling.

      • Discodoggy says:

        That’s similar to one of my best teams at the moment, with an Ore Eater instead of a rabbit. I love the Ghastly Kid so much more than the valk thanks to Ethereal.

    • Discodoggy says:

      Good point, as long as you start with the rabbit it should be fine.

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