February 8, 2015

Today’s Team: Wide World Of Horns
P/S Pygmy Direhorn (Trample, Stampede, Primal Cry)
P/P Death Talon Whelpguard (Shadowflame, Whirlwind, Clobber)
H/H Weebomination (Cleave, Consume Corpse, Haymaker)

Rationale:
After winning quite a bit with yesterday’s team I wanted to try a different pet to apply the Primal Cry. Next up on the Primal Cry list is the direhorn. I decided to go with the Pygmy Direhorn in lieu of the my other two (H/S runt and P/P stunted) since I wanted the extra speed. If my direhorn is faster then I can hopefully get off an extra attack in case I don’t have time to get off a Primal Cry with the slower direhorn. I’m not sure that this will happen often so the Stunted Direhorn might be a better fit, but for now I’ll stick with the Pygmy Direhorn. The plan is to use Primal Cry to slow the enemy team, then use Clobber to gain an extra turn. The Primal Cry and Whirlwind will soften up the back line enough so that the Weebomination can finish off the battle.

Concerns:
My Direhorn feels so exposed without Trihorn Shield.

The Battle:
The battle began as horn versus fire, the direhorn versus rag. I cast Primal Cry for the AoE damage and rag laid the trap. Pow! The trap went off on the first round, before the glorified campfire could set it off with Magma Wave. Rag went under the next round. Here’s where I would normally kick back and watch the sons bounce of off my shield, but since I went with Primal Cry I didn’t have that luxury. I wasn’t ready to sacrifice the direhorn yet so I swapped to the DTW. The DTW got off a Whirlwind before rag came up.

When Lil’ Ragnaros emerged I was tempted to use Clobber immediately, but I wanted to do whatever I could to deny another trap. I used Shadowflame, then when Magma Trap came off CD I used my Clobber. Now if rag stayed in I could easily kill him (thanks to the earlier Shadowflame damage) before he had a chance to lay another trap. Unfortunately my opponent realized this as well and brought in the Ghastly Kid. I lost the coin toss and took a Haunt before casting Whirlwind. Perhaps losing the toss wasn’t such a bad thing since the Nexus Whelpling was taking strong damage from Whirlwind; thanks to the even split mechanic the blue dragon was taking extra strong damage since the goat was spooking my DTW.

Lil’ Ragnaros returned to the front and I saw big damage ahead of me. The last Whirlwind had procced the dragonkin racial so I could take out rag with one Shadowflame if it hit high. It didn’t, and the result was another trap being laid. Now the battle was going to be tense in the rng sense, which isn’t a tension that I prefer. Whould the trap ruin me? After killing rag the DTW had another racialled attack to use on the Nexus Whelpling. It was enough to kill the blue dragon, but a Haunt tick resulted in a double dragon death. All that remained of the enemy team was the Ghastly Kid. I brought in the direhorn and hoped to detonate the trap, but it didn’t happen. By the time the direhorn was dead the Ghastly Kid had enough health to survive and take out my Weebomination with strong Hoof spam if the trap went off. Thankfully the trap didn’t go off until after I had already brought the goat to 0 health. Another close battle against the fiery rng lord, with today’s battle resulting in a win rather than a draw.