June 26, 2014

Today’s Team: Making Them Pay
S/S Death Adder Hatchling (Poison Fang, Puncture Wound, Blinding Poison)
H/H Spirit Crab (Snap, Surge, Shell Shield)
S/S Arctic Hare (Flurry, Dodge, Burrow)

Rationale:
I came back from my break and got quickly demoralized at the current state of pet battles. It seemed like there were way fewer fun and creative teams and more teams constructed to stomp your face with the top pets. Adders, valks, AoE teams, idols, it’s been a tough few days. I’m now including AoE on that list of heavy hitters. The lack of AoE defense outside of sandstorm needs to be fixed. Although my sandstorm teams do quite well I can’t say that I enjoy using them too much so I really wish there were more options. I surely don’t want to chain queue with them. I haven’t really given AoE heals a serious try, perhaps I’ll try that. At any rate, I decided to make my own team of heavy hitters. This is what I came up with. With so many adders and valks around I found myself not being able to use Whirlpool as much (due the “feign” part of Haunt and end of turn moves missing while blinded) so I’ve recently started using Surge instead of Whirlpool on my Spirit Crab. That change has won me a bunch of battles. Priority moves are just so damn useful with their ability to negate the extra attacks from speed based moves. I wasn’t quite sure wether to go with Burrow or Stampede on the rabbit. My gut is telling me to go with Burrow but I think it’s a toss up. I guess Burrow would be the more defensive of the two while Stampede would be the more offensive.

Concerns:
Sandstorm might give me problems. I mentioned a lot of AoE on my meta lately and those could also be troublesome with two my low hp pets. I hate to run into someone else’s creative team with a team like mine, I feel like I’m damaging the meta when that happens.

The Opposing Team:
S/S Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
P/S Fossilized Hatchling
H/H Scourged Whelpling
While I don’t have the same level of hatred for the Fossilized Hatchling that I do for the Anubisath Idol or Magical Crawdad, it is pretty high on my hate list and rising. Time to pay!

The Battle:
062614AI mentioned AoE being an issue for my low health pets, but so far I’ve been able to beat them by going all in with my snake in the beginning rather than swapping it out to let the CDs cool. I had already beaten this team a few times today so I had a good idea what they were up to. They tried to change things up a bit this time by starting with the Scourged Whelpling. I knew it had Tail Swipe, Call Darkness and Dreadful Breath. I thought it would start with Call Darkness then Dreadful Breath so I held off on the blind, but after two Tail Swipes I needed to protect myself. After the blind wore off the Dreadful Breath came so I was able to finish off the undead dragon with my snake. The timing worked out nicely as Blinding Poison was all ready to go when the Fossilized Hatchling replaced the dead pet. That allowed me to get off a Puncture Wound and Poison Fang before the snake died. The rabbit came in to easily finish off the Fossilized Hatchling. With the ability to take out the mech dragon’s Decoy the rabbit was also able to kill that pet. There was no need for the Spirit Crab, although it did take a lot of damage from all the AoE. Even though my opponent’s team ranks high on the annoying scale there’s still not a lot of satisfaction involved in winning with a DAH.

16 Responses to June 26, 2014

  1. Rhonstifor says:

    There has been a real power creep in our META of late. I like running unusual and interesting ( to me ) teams, and I try and avoid using Valks and Adders, but I also like to win. So, my interesting teams start getting stomped and then I bring out the big gun teams and then I will see clones of my power teams being played.
    I also will play OP teams partly out of interest in learning their weaknesses and seeing how other players beat them. Sometimes I play OP teams because people on the forums are saying they are not that bad, but my feeling is that often they are just not being played well, and every now and then I need to just double check.

    Because of the power creep, IMO, if you want to win, pretty much anything goes. As much as I try to avoid using a Valk, if I see too many Anub Idols, I get sorely tempted.
    I totally agree with you on the Sandstorm teams not being that fun to play even though they are one of the few slight counters to AOE teams. And my favorite Sandstormer, the Quiraji Guardling, gets eaten by the Fossilized Raptor.

    This is why I started a thread on the forums entitled How Do you Beat……..
    I wish more people would bring up tough teams and pets and the solutions. Annimosity reminded me of the power of Squirrels against the current META. Ill take all the help I can get!

    • Vek says:

      Since I’m on EU I sadly can’t participate in your thread on US forums.

      As I have mentioned before on some other comment here. One pet I use a lot against MPD+Fossilized Hatchling teams is the S/S Prairie Mouse. Poison Fang the MPD then Stampede. Poison Fang is strong damage vs mechs(the dot part) and stampede makes it double damage and destroys the decoy. Also Flurry is nice vs the Fossilized, but when they run with Claw you might die a bit too quickly.

      Qiraji Guardling is one of my most used Humanoids but as you said BONESTORM will eat it up. :(

      Yesterday I was trying out different counters to this AOE plague. Old goodie Clockwork Gnome(even though taking strong damage from MPD AoE) + Kovok(Poison Fang,Digest Brain,Black Claw), was very successful since these AoE teams often switch around a bit to do their AoE but Black Claw is so powerful they won’t live that long, especially if you get Poison Fang and Black Claw up and they switch in a new pet. Stick in a croc as a finisher that will be able to take Haunts, take less damage from Bonestorm and give DAH a run for their money. As a side note this team ran into a guy that has been stalling my meta with a Sunflower/Blossoming Ancient/third elemental kind of like Blossoming Ancient, and I am happy to say the Kovok killed them all with Poison Fang+Black Claw, plus their sunlight really helped the Digest Brain heal(might have been different if the sunflower had the big hit instead, not sure).

      • Noel says:

        I generally grab a random team (with a few fav pets) and play a match. If I win I keep going, if I lose I try to think what I’ve seen tonight. If Valks are popular I grab a bunny, if Mechs are popular I grab an elemental etc.

        My team usually ends up completely different by the end of the evening.

  2. Liwei says:

    I’ve been using my emperor crab a whole lot lately.

    I keep running into teams similar to the one you faced here, and the crab absolutely destroys people running teams like this.

    The fact that it does well vs death adders is a nice bonus.

  3. Jan Kleemann says:

    Yep, i also want to win sometimes, and this is a good team for winning.

    Surge is an incredible powerful move. With a H/H Spirit Crab i killed a S/S DAH and(!) a H/S Ashwing Moth. (With a litte bit of luck cause Moth Dust misses two times).

  4. Jan Kleemann says:

    … :/ Soon i started beating this f*** Mechanical Pandaren Dragonlings, they comes with two of them. No Chance…

    • Vek says:

      MPD can be really dangerous in competent hands. Note, critters take less damage from the AoE. Critters with Poison Fang gives them trouble since the dot is strong. Squirrels with crouch and Nut Barrage will take much less damage and destroy decoys fast. Skunks have decent AoE heal.

      Almost any Barrage or stampede ability will easily help against the Decoy.

      Of course the easiest counter is the S/S Fiendish Imp. Much of the MPD power also comes from it’s speed. The imp is faster so can gate the MPD for some damage. Then Immolate(especially on humanoids since they self heal) will give strong damage and help destroy decoys. Also brun will hit for 500.

      The imp has a tougher time when the MPD is paired with a fossilized hatchling.

      • Discodoggy says:

        This is why my Fiendish Imp sees more action than most of my other pets. Since I’ve been using the adder lately (I’ve really gone off the deep end lol) I’ve found that Puncture Wound will drop the shield if the MPD is poisoned. The MPD can always swap out to make sure this doesn’t happen.

    • Discodoggy says:

      Maybe an imp and a rabbit? Although that would really leave you exposed to idols, but most of my teams have trouble with idols.

      • Vek says:

        I often cringe at the sight of an idol, especially when needing pets to counter MPD, undead and DAH. Though P/P Baby Ape can usually get the job done. Smash just hit that hard. Clobber to get a sandstorm free Banana Barrage. Mainly works since Demolish is not that popular anymore and Crush is weak vs beasts.

  5. Jeff says:

    I ran this team against a triple MPD team. This is a team I have hated running up against in the past. The name “Making Them Pay” is well deserved. Sweet revenge.

    • Discodoggy says:

      Nice. I’m getting really, really tired of MPD and Fossilized Hatchlings. I’m seeing them almost as much as valks lately.

  6. Vek says:

    Another pet I use from time to time is Gu’chi Swarmling. Chew and then stampede. That combination hurts, pretty much kills fossilized hatchlings.

  7. Tekulve says:

    I beata triple MPD team with Lil rags / Broom and Emp.crab -p/p
    Rags burns it down with its wave

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