October 1, 2015

Make It Twenty

Agent Black
H/H Bone Serpent (Bone Barrage, Call Darkness, Nocturnal Strike)
P/P Dread Hatchling (Shadow Talon, Call Darkness, Nocturnal Strike)
S/S Nightshade Hatchling (Lash, Call Darkness, Blinding Poison)

I’ve had this team sitting around with a 17-0 record for a long, long time. I haven’t been inspired to use it. For some reason I don’t really like the Dread Hatchling, most likely because I haven’t used it much myself. When I don’t use a pet often but it beats me a lot I start to develop a negative connotation with that pet, and that’s probably what happened with the Dread Hatchling in the past.

This restless morning I decided to dust this team off despite my feelings about the Dread Hatchling. I’ve faced a sunny day flower/scumbag crawdad combo three times in a row. This player doesn’t like to attack much; two times out of the three the third pet was a Hyjal Wisp so they were just swapping and healing, swapping and healing, swapping and healing. I don’t feel like using the same darkness teams that I always use, so here I am with Agent Black. I played it once already today and faced a triple Nexus Whelpling team. With three times Call Darkness at my disposal it was ugly for the dragons. I’m close enough to the next undefeated milestone so I figured what the hell, I’ll go to 20-0 if I can. That sunny day team is probably gone after typing all of this; it’s user is probably off stomping on kittens in plastic bags or giving poisoned candy to old ladies, you know, the things that sunny day users like to do in their spare time.

How does this team work? The synergy with Call Darkness and Nocturnal Strike is simple: Nocturnal Strike is a powerful move that has only a 50% chance to hit, unless the target is blinded, then it goes up to 100% base hit chance. The weather darkness blinds non-elementals, so there you go. Darkness is good against healing teams since the weather reduces healing by 50%.

I should note that in my first seventeen wins with this team I used Anzu’s Blessing instead of Nocturnal Strike, but with a scumbag crawdad around I decided to go with the flying attack rather than the buff. Enough talk, lets darken some healing!

Battle 19
win vs. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Weebomination, Scourged Whelpling
Ok, that was weird. I was surely heading for a draw until my opponent skipped a round at the end of the battle. You know me, I count a win as a win, but that surely puts an asterisk next my record. So how did I get in that position in the first place? My Bone Serpent has a decent health pool but both of my other pets are susceptible to back line damage so I was in a bind from the get-go. I started with my serpent, hoping that the MPD would drop a decoy first. That’s exactly what happened, the decoy went down then Thunderbolt was cast. Instead of going through my rotation of Bone Barrage, Call Darkness, Bone Barrage, Nocturnal Strike, Bone Barrage, I used the two big damage moves after the initial barrage, then swapped to my flyer. My opponent swapped to the Scourged Whelpling and I was able to take it out with my flyer. My Dread Hatchling survived the encounter with 39 health.

Both the Dread Hatchling and the Weebomination were now 244 speed. Another Nocturnal Strike would have been huge, but I lost the coin toss. Dead birdie. I brought in my elemental to blind, cast Call Darkness then swap back to the Bone Serpent. I went through my rotation with the serpent, then went back to my elemental towards the end of the Weebomination so I could save my Bone Serpent for the MPD. You may think the Nightshade Sproutling was a better choice, but without a way to take down the decoy it was not. Perhaps I swapped too much, but it was looking like I was headed for a draw until my opponent skipped a round during the final match-up of MPD vs. Bone Serpent.
Record: 19-0

Battle 20
win vs. Teroclaw Hatcling, Molten Corgi, Emerald Proto-Whelp
Another asterisk, since the healy bird had Hawk Eye instead of Dodge. Does that even count as beating a Teroclaw Hatchling? It sure went down quick to my Bone Serpent. The Molten Corgi made me miss my Junglebeak (from my Rich Girls team) since I didn’t have a way to ensure Nocturnal Strike would hit the elemental. It wasn’t really an issue since the other two pets went down so easily. The EPW swapped into a Call Darkness, ouch. It then tried to heal and couldn’t make a good job of it in the darkness. It contributed zero damage. I made it to twenty, but in the most unspectacular fashion.
Record: 20-0