January 20, 2015

Today’s Team: Lightning Soup
P/B Hydraling (Tail Slap, Call Lightning, Shell Armor)
P/S Crazy Carrot (Iron Bark, Aged Yolk, Blistering Cold)
P/B Infected Fawn (Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, Death and Decay)

Rationale:
I was always envious of people with Frosty because of the move Blistering Cold. I really, really wanted to use it with lightning. Now that I have access to my own Blistering Cold pet I haven’t tried it much. Well, that’s about to change. The plan is to apply Blistering Cold then change the weather to lightning. Every Frostbite (the effect of Blistering Cold) tick will cause lightning to strike. Frostbite will stack on the current pet until it swaps, so if it doesn’t swap it’s going to get hit with a lot of lightning. I brought the Infected Fawn for Death and Decay, another effect that goes well with lightning.

Concerns:
Frostbite stacks are erased when the pet current is swapped out, so I shouldn’t rely on this doing too much damage. This team has “completely shut down by idol” written all over it. Well, I could change the weather with the Hydraling, but the aquatic takes strong damage from Sandstorm.

The Battle:
The S/S Bronze Whelpling is absolutely terrifying if it’s faster than your pet. It was faster than all of my pets. Plus there’s that damn Lil’ Ragnaros and his trap. Good luck me. The Bronze Whelpling started against my Crazy Carrot. As one would expect the dragon started off with Crystal Prison then Arcane Slash. I used Blistering Cold with the intent of somehow getting it to do some lightning magic. After a few rounds of Ironbark I swapped out the barely living Crazy Carrot for my Hydraling. As soon as I did this my opponent swapped to Lil’ Ragnaros in order to avoid the Frostbite and lightning. Oh well, maybe next battle, for now I have a nasty elemental to deal with.

Lil’ Ragnaros turned out to not be so nasty. He took a Call Lightning on the swap, then got pounded by two Tail Slaps to end his fiery life. The elemental was dead, but a trap was laid. Now the battle became a waiting game for the trap. Would it go off at a good time for me or for my opponent? The Bronze Whelpling came back in and went straight for the Lift-Off against my aquatic, who applied Shell Armor. I was really hoping to save the low health Crazy Carrot to sacrifice to the trap in case it lasted the entire nine rounds, but the Lift-Off forced my hand. The carrot died to the dragon which now had a dragonkin bonus. My shielded aquatic came back in and had to take an Arcane Slash, Crystal Prison and then two more Arcane Slashes before finishing off the Bronze Whelpling.

My Hydraling had 66 health remaining when the Ghastly Kid Came in. There were two rounds remaining on the trap. If I let my Hydraling die on this round then the trap would go off next round on my Infected Fawn and I don’t think that I’d be able to from the loss of a turn. If my Hydraling could survive until next round then the trap would detonate on nothing. A third option was to bring in the fawn for one round, then swap right back to the Hydraling to eat the trap. However, that would mean extra damage on my fawn and less damage against the Ghastly Kid. The third case was probably the safest bet, but I chose to live on the edge and tried to survive with my Hydraling. What am I crazy? It only had 66 health! Well, Shell Armor is that powerful and hopefully it would only take a weak attack. I pressed the Shell Armor button, the trap remained undetonated, the Ghastly Kid attacked with… Infected Claw for 37 damage! Yes! On the next round the Hydraling got off another Tail Slap, but more importantly the trap detonated on nothing after the Hydraling died. My Infected Fawn came in to use Adrenaline Rush then Flurry before seeing the Ghastly Kid run.