May 24, 2014

Today’s Team: Bog Bastards
H/S Tiny Bog Beast (Clobber, Lash, Rampage)
S/S Fiendish Imp (Burn, Immolation, Nether Gate)
P/P Sen’Jin Fetish (Flame Breath, Wild Magic, Sear Magic)

Rationale:
Occasionally I will get demoralized with pet battling due the state of the meta. I want to try new pets, new strategies, new teams but sometimes it is hard to do that (and win) when you see the same powerful pets over and over. This is one of those times. Lately it’s the Unborn Val’kyrs and Mechanical Pandaren Dragonlings that are staling up the meta. In 220 battles I have faced 53 Val’kyrs and 31 mech dragons. I tried using some new pets last night and this morning but unfortunately if they don’t do well against Unborn Val’kyrs and mech dragons then it’ll be hard to win. My response has been to still try and use some new pets, but unfortunately I’ve been teaming them up with the tried and true counters to the current meta. That’s how I made this team. I wanted to use the Tiny Bog Beast but it’s not particularly good against either of my most frequent enemy pets so I included a counter for each. There’s some synergy with Immolation and Wild Magic, too. I should use this combo more. There’s no idol or adder counter but those pets are each appearing in only about 10% of battles at this point so they are secondary concerns.

052414BAs far as the Tiny Bog Beast goes I’ve always found the move set a little off. I like Clobber, especially now that I have an H/S breed. If I put Lash in the second slot then I have two moves that are best when going first on a 289 speed pet, which is somewhat of a gamble. I could always take Leap for a speed buff (which is what I did on my H/P), but that does such little damage it often feels like a wasted turn. Since I already have so many small attacks I chose Rampage for something that hits harder, but that locks you into three rounds. Not the greatest move set, but at least it’s something different. Well, one out of my three pets is something different.

Concerns:
The Tiny Bog Beast’s move set is not the greatest. 289 speed may not be fast enough to fully utilize Lash and Clobber.

The Opposing Team:
H/H Blackfuse Bombling
P/S Jademist Dancer
H/H Unborn Val’kyr
All less than 289 speed :).

The Battle:
052414ADomination…bog style! The Tiny Bog Beast kicked so much butt that my opponent fled after only seven rounds. The battle started as Fiendish Imp versus Jademist Dancer. The Unborn Val’kyr was in the third pet slot so I force swapped the elemental out for the BFB. It cast Flame Jet after my imp cast Immolation. I then brought the Tiny Bog Beast who took a weak zap on the swap. Not wanting to face an elemental with a mech my opponent swapped to the Jademist Dancer, who got hit with all three Lashes on the swap. Clobber then stunned the enemy elemental so next round it helplessly took all three Lashes again. It only took two more Lashes the following round to finish off the Jademist Dancer. My opponent had hardly done any damage and was now down a pet so they fled.

16 Responses to May 24, 2014

  1. Rhonstifor says:

    “There’s no idol or adder counter”

    I consider the Senjin Fetish’s wild magic to be a type of Idol counter as it pretty much negates sandstorm. I also think that Sear Magic is a nice counter for adders if the adder user is not ready for it.

    • Discodoggy says:

      I just went 10-0 with this team. I faced a lot of mediocre teams but I also faced a few decent ones. Three Unborn Val’kyrs were beaten, the last team consisted of an S/S Death Adder, Unborn Val’kyr and Xu-Fu. It was really a crap shoot with Sear Magic vs. Blinding Poison. I managed to make the right call and cast Sear Magic right as the blind came, it was pretty lucky.

      Edit:
      I’m starting to feel like a bully now, this team has gone 20-0. I’m not sure that I’ve ever won this many in a row before. There haven’t been many of the top pets, except a few Unborn Val’kyrs and mech dragons, which is exactly what this team was designed for. Still, 20-0 is good. I think that the accuracy of Nether Gate is what keeps the Fiendish Imp in line. I haven’t missed an important one yet.

      Edit:
      Win 26 was against a val’kyr, noob idol, and EPW. I missed two Flame Breaths, an important Rampage and a Nether Gate. In the end my imp had around 900 hp versus the 75 hp valk and a 400 hp EPW. My opponent should have won but they cast Curse of Doom lol. They Haunted on the undead round so I was able to take out the EPW with two Burns before the CoD went off. An epic fail ending to a 44 round epic battle. I should probably be Tweeting this, but I don’t want to ruin my mojo.

  2. Discodoggy says:

    I knew that would happen lol! Started tweeting and lost my second battle. 27 in a row is probably the best run I’ve ever had. I lost to an Infected Squirrel, it was probably Rhonstifor haha.

    • rhonstifor says:

      /wave 😛

      sorry bout that
      immolation + wild magic makes me giddy, and fiendish + senjin are the top 2 with that combo. In my latest craptastic challenge, i used this pair to help make a clefthoof runt be on a winning team.
      After my masochistic craptastic challenge, which wears on me because I really dont like losing, I felt like tonight a nice abusive fun team was in order. Couldn’t let you have all the fun, and infected squirrel, + fetish, + fiendish imp is beyond delightful.
      I have to admit, I was pretty psyched to see your team tonight.

  3. AtroposZ says:

    Occasionally I will get demoralized with pet battling due the state of the meta. I want to try new pets, new strategies, new teams but sometimes it is hard to do that (and win) when you see the same powerful pets over and over.

    Funny story. Mere moments after I read that, I was poking around Warcraft Pets and found myself staring at a page titled Pet Battle Tournaments and Hosting Your Own Event. Whoa, I thought. I bet Disco could run an awesome (monthly, whatever) tournament for all the other people who want to be more creative but cant get away from the meta.

    You could exclude certain pets downright, or figure that people who would be interested enough to do it wouldnt come with a team of Valks and Adders. Pick a low pop server, set it by the starter area so people can just make a new toon, and there ya go. No prizes, just the fun of the battle.

    • AtroposZ says:

      Damn you, no edit button :) Someone close my html tag. Man, that’s what I get for trying to be all snazzy instead of just C&P’ing like a normal person.

      • Discodoggy says:

        Fixed it. That’s a great idea. Since I’m keeping track of which pets are appearing in the meta perhaps the tournament could be limited to pets from my list that have been used 3 or less times. Call it the “underused pet tournament” or something like that.

        • Luthorien says:

          At the very least, I’d move that Valks, DAHs, Rags, Idols, Direhorns and Fossilized Hatchlings be stricken from this tournament. :)

        • Hirrus says:

          If you were going to do it frequently, you could ban all three pets on the winning team from future entries. So the first tourney would be kind of a Meta’s Greatest Hits snooze-fest, with the winner being the luckiest coin toss on Valk/DAH/Rags, but then you never have to see them again. As the tournament matures, people will be forced to use less and less common pets, until we’re all throwing bandicoons and spiders at each other.

  4. Tekulve says:

    If you’re going to have an under used/under appreciated tourney, you should limit the pet breeds to the much maligned b/b breeds… I know this would eliminate too many good pets but maybe if there is a b/b option then that pet would have to be selected.

    • AtroposZ says:

      Ha! That might be a little more difficult, considering many (most?) people only capture the loathed (or upgrade) the loathed b/b breeds if there’s absolutely nothing else available/they only come thus. And what about pets that people already have the three “pure” breeds in?

      Maybe something else like … all-one-family teams? But considering it wouldnt be random match ups for long, that might get ugly quickly. Oh, you have an all undead family? What an odd coinky-dink, my team just switched to all frogs

      • Discodoggy says:

        If anything I would go in the opposite direction, where you can only have one of each family type on your team. I’ve always wondered how pet battles would have turned out if they implemented that from the start. I think it would seem too restrictive to make it happen now, but if from the get-go we had this limitation it would get rid of a lot of “troll” teams. No more triple idols, triple crows, triple anything. No more Val’kyr and Stitched Pup. No more Sunflower and Blossoming Ancient. It would also take away some combos that I like, too. I’m not advocating for this, it’s just me pondering.

        I put the tournament on my list of things to do this summer, it’s gonna happen.

    • Discodoggy says:

      This could work, too.

      I’m wondering how many pets should be excluded. The top 50? The top 100?

      • Rhonstifor says:

        I don’t think anything should be excluded if the tournament is set up in a way that allows for multiple matches and changing teams.
        I don’t know how to do it, but it seems that it things were set up right, you would see the obvious, the obvious counters, and then at some point, things might start getting interesting as valks and adders and consume corpse and aoe teams don’t autowin.
        The only pets I might exclude would be something like Murkalot, Alterac Brew Pup, and abilities that are broken like Moth dust ( sleeps critters ) sleeping gas ( chain CC ) and maybe even things like Magma trap and snap trap although I am less inclined to recommend banning the traps even though they need a nerf.

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