Five Wins Or Bust
The last two write-ups have been about super teams, tonight I’ll try to win with some teams that have less impressive records. At least I’ll do that until I lose too much.
Battle 1: Bovine Gaze, 10-6-1
Macabre Marionette, Ominous Flame, Pygmy Cow
vs. Anubisath Idol, Sky-Bo, Abyssius
Even though the idol doesn’t strike fear and disgust into my heart as it once did it’s still a top-tier pet that requires attention to beat. I started with my puppet then swapped to the Ominous Flame when the idol cast Sandstorm. I was able to change the weather and apply Foreboding Curse to the idol, then bring back the Macabre Marionette to finish the humanoid. I was behind on damage, but I had taken out the biggest threat. Sky-Bo wasn’t much of a threat since the Decoy was easily dispersed by field effects, but I was afraid of a Screeching Gears stun so I went to my critter, which was able to finish off the battle for me.
Record: 1-0
Battle 2: Colden Days, 10-4
Tiny Snowman, Snowy Panda, Rotten Little Helper
vs. Sky-Bo, Crimson Whelpling, Scourged Whelpling
I wish I could be a gentleman and say that I got outplayed by this outstanding team used by a seasoned pet battler, but I would be lying. I got stunned four times by Screeching Gears, that’s what beat me. Even knowing that rng beat me wouldn’t be so sour if I didn’t get chain stunned; that’s one mechanic of pet battles that I feel needs to be changed. Oh well, it’s a mechanic that has been around for a long time and probably won’t be changed anytime soon. I’ve chain stunned a few clonedance teams with my mech toad so I’m not innocent of this abuse myself.
Record: 1-1
Battle 3: Crit Like An Eagle, 8-7
Fiendish Imp, Sen’Jin Fetish, Imperial Eagle Chick
vs. Darkmoon Tonk, Darkmoon Tonk, Darkmoon Tonk
I don’t know if you remember but this was one of the first teams that I tried to “Make It Ten” with. It started out 8-0 and since then I lost seven in a row, ouch. This team was made to play around with Hawk Eye, which means no Lift-Off. Not having Lift-Off takes the chick a step down. For this battle the eagle was less of a necessary component of victory thanks to the imp and mask both being good against the tonks. It’s still worth mentioning that when I brought the eagle in I didn’t use Hawk Eye; the low health of the eagle makes it too risky to roll the dice in the hopes of some big crits. The losing streak is over.
Record: 2-1
Battle 4: Black Bones T, 6-4
Tiny Twister, Macabre Marionette, Mechanical Scorpid
vs. Fel Flame, Scourged Whelpling, Puddle Terror
I’m not sure why this team is so mediocre. In 5.4 I made a few lightning teams with the Tiny Twister that did quite well. I thought that this would be another, but obviously I was wrong. The Mechanical Scorpid has recently impressed me in general, but not on this team. Lightning can often be more trouble than it’s worth, as was the case here. The Immolation ticks along with the lightning really put a hurt on my Mechanical Scorpid. I probably kept the Tiny Twister in too long in the beginning of the battle, so I’ll chalk the loss up to my own bad play.
Record: 2-2
Battle 5: Party Party Party, 0-0*
Tiny Twister, Macabre Marionette, Lil’ Bling
vs. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Stonegrinder, Fossilized Hatchling
Losing that last battle made me want to play with my favorite lighting team from MoP. When I saw that I had to face the team that brought my Macarena Prohibited win streak to an end I thought I might me in trouble. It turns out that my MoP team was able to exact some revenge! This was a fairly straight forward battle with zero swaps. Puppet beat fossil, grinder killed puppet, twister beat grinder, MPD finished twister, Lil’ Bling took out MPD (thanks to Extra Plating). High fives all around. I have that stupid song in my head now (5/7/14).
Record: 3-2
Battle 6: Imps Party Harder, 0-0*
Tiny Twister, Macabre Marionette, Fiendish Imp
vs. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Nether Fairie Dragon, Nether Fairie Dragon
I guess the night has turned into a trip down memory lane, twister style. This was an extremely poor match-up for my unfortunate opponent, with me having multiple ways to tear down a decoy and with Lil’ Bling taking weak damage from the NFDs. It was a massacre. And I still have that song in my head.
Record: 4-2
Battle 7: Jaguero Intensified, 0-0*
Tiny Twister, Sen’Jin Fetish, Baby Ape
vs. Direhorn Runt, Lil’ Bling, Sister Of Temptation
This was never one of my better lightning teams. I always thought of the Baby Ape as a fun pet, but in this battle there was nothing fun about missing all three of of the initial Banana Barrage ticks. Wasn’t that a WoD change, making some barrage moves 50%? I don’t remember. The ape went down fast and didn’t do any direct damage thanks to AoE and swap damage along with the barrage fail. That lack of ape damage pretty much sealed my fate, although Lil’ Bling did have some difficulty taking out the twister in the end. Man, this is taking some time to finish.
Record: 4-3
Battle 8: Macarena Prohibited, 66-2
Alpine Hare, Trunks, Fragment Of Anger
vs. Wild Golden Hatchling, Unborn Val’kyr, Sister Of Temptation
I needed to get the fifth win so I went to my current go-to team. The wins just keep racking up. I’m sure eventually I’ll go on a bad run to bring this team’s win rate back down to Earth. For now I’m enjoying the success. I strted with the rabbit against the valk, it let me get a Flurry off before swapping. I brought the FoA in to take weak damage from the dragon. It cast Lightning which helped my AoE. I couldn’t get off a second Spirit Beam, but it didn’t matter. The rabbit finished off the battle as Trunks patiently waited for a chance that never came.
Record: 5-3
*These are teams that haven’t been played yet since I started keeping W/L records.
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I wonder what you think of the h/h Valkyr in pvp. The b/b seems widely considered as the best…but given the crazy health the h/h has..I figure a person could gain an advantage by running shadow shock/cod/unholy asc.
The idea would be to run it with the power breed imperial eagle that has thrash and cyclone/liftoff…people expect a Valk to be first so if they put a critter out there…hello thrash…if not they get a quick cyclone to deal with or liftoff
an ovious 3rd can be an s/s dancer
I never use a valk in pvp…i never acquired an h/h breed either but i see some interesting potential there..esp. since there are lots of humanoids in pvp atm
Edit previous post’s spelling- obvious
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ps..on another topic..i tried an Ominous Flame with Trunks to buff Elekks fly to 70 per cent …nice results…
I saw that in someone’s entry here I think? Or I fought someone like this, definitely the latter is true also, that was one nasty Trunks.
70% move that puts down some pain, priority if you’re really unlucky. It was a terror to behold.
H/H Unborn Val’kyr is definitely my favorite, but I’m slightly OCD concerning pet breeds and about utilizing the most efficient ones, even though they may not sync perfectly with moves.
I really hope blizzard removes the pet journal limits soon, I really want to collect all breeds, especially for better PvPing.
Before they adjusted the Valk to be less OP, the BB was the choice because you could haunt an HH Valk before they haunted you, and then if they tried to haunt you after you haunted them, they would die. This was important considering there were stretches when you would see a Valk nearly every game.
I rarely used the B/B valk, the H/H was usually my first choice.
PS. I am liking Disco’s Battles as tag (it’s way better than just Battles), it has some soul in it again
I still see a fair few Valks ..whether b/b or h/h they never ever vary from the CoD/haunt plan even if I start with a pet that has an obvious blind or avoid option
Maybe this is not the norm on other metas . I brought up the alternate utility of the h/h attack sequence and possible pets to pair it with partly to see if anyone has tried it out much
With Siphon Life and Unholy Ascension? I like the latter, but the slot is weak if your pet fights last. On the bright side, everyone suspects you have Haunt and may not try to dodge your undead turn if you have something big in your lineup.
Without Haunt, I’d rather play the Ghostly Skull though. Same health but with ghostly strike for a ‘free’ swap.
Shadow shock/ CoD / unholy ascension for the ‘damned’round…
shadow shock slams humanoids ..as a number 2 in the rotation pet it would be tanky and lay out some dmg
I’ve used that setup before with my B/B valk to good effect (I wasn’t patient enough to camp out for a H/H and the B/B was perfect back when everyone and their mother was using a valk)
The downside is you’re kind of pidgeon holed into leading with (and not swapping) it lest you waste potential damage from your UA. And if you lead with it into a poor matchup then UA alone won’t really justify the pet’s slot.
But if you can get at least an average matchup the valk should be able to trade itself 1 for 1 at worst, then UA. Then you have two strong sweepers in the sidelines waiting to come in and make use of the damage.
Straightforward but can be good.