October 13, 2014

Farewell 5.4 Part VII
The countdown continues.

Team 76: Cyclonic Bonestomp
Competitive Score: 8/10
Jademist Dancer, Dragonbone Hatchling, Spirit Crab
vs. Alpine Hare, Darkmoon Tonk, Chi-Chi
My opponent started with the Alpine Hare against my Dragonbone Hatchling, bad move. Thrash and a flyer’s speed put the bunny to rest quickly. Chi-Chi was next, but the annoying heal and stall move set (Tranquility/Ethereal) just allowed my Cyclone more time to damage the tonk on the back line. By the time the tonk came out it had 159 health before failsafe. The Jademist Dancer is a strong pet with some great self synergy. Throw in Cyclone and you have one of the OP comps of 5.4. With no changes to Rain Dance in WoD it looks to remain just as OP.

Team 75: Dropping Birds
Competitive Score: 5/10
Fiendish Imp, Restless Shadeling, Warpstalker Hatchling
vs. Grunty, Feral Vermling, Magical Crawdad
When I really want to punish flyers I replace the Restless Shadeling with a Lost Of Lordaeron and spam Arcane Explosion, but this is a better team to face all comers due to the Immolation/Plagued Blood synergy. The Warpstalker Hatchling is not too strong when not facing flyers. It didn’t matter that the beast wasn’t facing a flyer in this battle against a novelty pet and a crawdad without Wish.

Team 74: My Middle Finger
Competitve Score: 7/10
Unborn Val’kyr, Imperial Eagle Chick, Treasure Goblin
vs. Alpine Hare, Chi-Chi, Jademist Dancer
Aww, I didn’t get to use my fun strategy thanks to an opponent who fled. Apparenly they didn’t learn from two battles above that Thrashing birds eat rabbits for lunch. If they hadn’t fled (and I didn’t anticipate them starting with a rabbit) I would have used the sequence Siphon Life, Haunt, Wild Magic, Portal, Thrash. When it works it really hurts.

Team 73: Turcraben
Competitive Score: 7/10
Spirit Crab, Emperor Crab, Highlands Turkey
vs. Luyu Moth, Ashwing Moth, Amber Moth
Yawn. Even with two sleeps proccing it was still close. I lost, but this was an example of how well Surge does when it comes to shutting down speed based moves like Alpha Strike.

Team 72: Darkshore Deathsquad
Competitive Score: 6/10
Squirrel, Darkshore Cub, Shimmershell Snail
vs. Fel Flame, Nexus Whelpling, Spirebound Crab
My third highest ranking map buddy team did well in htis battle. I was worried about the crab but my opponent let me Maul it while bleeding, twice.

Team 71: Total Cheese
Competitive Score: 9/10
Unborn Val’kyr, Stitched Pup, Death Adder Hatchling
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Voodoo Figurine, Clockwork Gnome
Sometimes I want to cash in on the cheese just like everyone else. Haunt: broken. Consume Corpse’s interaction with Haunt: broken. Death Adder Hatchling: broken. Perhaps I should have named this team Total Broken. My opponent tried to anticipate my moves by cleansing at the right times to counter the usual blind and derp you see in the queue, but I anticipated the anticipation. There wasn’t much they could do. I take great satisfaction in squashing mech gnomes, even with my broken team.

Team 70: Do You Even Rain
Competitive Score: 9/10
Jademist Dancer, Blighthawk, Spirit Crab
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Bonkers, Alpine Hare
A Spirit Crab as a third member of a clonedance team makes life tough for opponents. Facing this Haunt and stall team was a good example of how strong it be. I deviated from the usual strategy since I assumed the rabbit would come after the Haunt. My Spirit Crab greeted it with some Surges and Snaps. It ended up being an engaging battle against two competitive teams. I squeezed out the win when my opponent made the choice to rely on Bonkers’ stun for the win; the stun didn’t proc.

Team 69: Zuly Storm
Competitive Score: 6/10
Spirit Crab, Mulgore Hatchling, Ashstone Core
vs. Living Sandling, Fire-Proof Roach, Clockwork Gnome
My opponent fled early after realizing Flank would be blocked by shields and weather. I would like to replay these teams when people quit, but damn I still have a lot of teams to get through.

Team 68: Ghost On Ghost Violence
Competitive Score: 8/10
Lost Of Lordaeron, Spirit Crab, Death Adder Hatchling
vs. Murkalot, Blackfuse Bombling, Death Adder Hatchling
My Death Adder Hatchling served its purpose well: due to the fear of a blind it made my opponent hold off on RI long enough to do some major damage. When the RI finally came it only allowed the BFB to finish off the adder while murk was still taking poison ticks. Arcane Explosion spam killed Murkalot and weakened the adder enough so that the crab was able to take it out after the BFB died. It’s always pleasant beating Murkalot. I always talk about Haunt and the adder being overtuned, but one of the moves in serious need of tuning down is RI. Unfortunately, I haen’t heard that anything is being done about it. Or traps. Or chain cc.

Team 67: Righteous Ravaging
Competitive Score: 4/10
Murkalot, Ravager Hatchling, Crimson Geode
vs. Gilnean Raven, Dread Hatchling, Spectral Tiger Cub
The fact that this silly team is the only Murkalot team that I’ve kept shows my true disdain for RI (and Shieldstorm). This team requires the two speed moves (Spark and Rend) to hit all three times to be even somewhat effective. It’s really just for kicks. I won this battle not because of RI but because of Blessed Hammer pounding the birds so hard. Plus my opponent made a mistake by not taking out the Crimson Geode with the cat when it had the chance. Instead it cast Prowl, making it slower and enabling the 244 speed elemental to take advantage of the extra hit from Spark.

Team 66: Ratty Dreader
Competitive Rating: 6/10
Son Of Animus, Scourged Whelpling, Black Rat
vs. Luyu Moth, Toad, Scorpion
At some point in 5.4 I started replacing 341 speed rats with the 325 speed Prairie Mouse but this team was from before then. The rat was able to get some nice heals from Plagued Blood in this battle, but both Touch of the Animus rounds were wasted from a Frog Kiss. That made it close; my opponent may have stood a chance if the moth was rare rather than uncommon quality.

Team 65: Corn Dogs
Competitive Score: 7/10
Fiendish Imp, Sen’Jin Fetish, Cornish Rex Cat
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Eternal Strider, Phoenix Hatchling
Sigh. So many people are inexperienced enough to let me cast Nether Gate on their valk on round one. So many times Nether Gate misses. It’s almost always a loss, as it was here.

Team 64: Bad News Bleeds
Competitive Score: 7/10
Blighted Squirrel, Darkshore Cub, Snarly
vs. Lil’ Ragnaros, Bonkers, Death Adder Hatchling
I’m really starting to wish that there was some sort of penalty for fleeing pet battles like there is for dungeons and battlegrounds. I was going through all of the possibilities of the match-ups, moves, speeds, etc. and I thought this might be an interesting battle. Snarly took out Lil’ Ragnaros right away but a trap was down so anything could happen. Instead my opponent fled. They still could have easily won and had an interesting experience doing so. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure if a penalty would work. It would depend on how many people are actually queueing for PvP pet battles, which is inforamtion that I’m not privy to.

Team 63: Studebakers
Competitive Score: 6/10
Lost Of Lordaeron, Enchanted Broom, Lifelike Toad
vs. Lil’ Ragnaros, Bonkers, Death Adder Hatchling
I think I preferred this player more when they fled like a spineless chicken. Long story short: broom 800+ health, rag 200ish health, trap goes off giving rag the win. Oh, I think Studebakers was meant to be some sort of anti-clonedance team, but I’m not quite sure why I included the LoL.

Team 62: Brother In Claw
Competitive Score: 9/10
Emperor Crab, Spirit Crab, Death Adder Hatchling
vs. Kun-Lai Runt, Nexus Whelpling, Voodoo Figurine
I almost blew this one due to complacency. I thought “Tail Sweep would have to hit really high to take my adder out, so there’s no need to blind, even if does I got this”. It hit really high. I was still able to win thanks to the anti-synergy of arcane winds and Deep Freeze, without that I may have lost.

Team 61: Kleeman’s Krushers
Competitive Score: 9/10
Tiny Twister, Lil’ Bling, Sen’Jin Fetish
vs. Clockwork Gnome, Spawn Of G’Nathus, Sunreaver Micro-Sentry
The Tiny Twister is all sorts of amazing. My two favorite team mates for the elemental are Lil’ Bling and the Macabre Marionette, but here I used the Sen’Jin Fetish at Jan Kleeman’s recommendation. Wild Magic, Flame Breath, Lightning, Make It Rain, any combination of those racks up big damage fast. This team has a little bit of valk counter and a little bit of adder counter, plus some RI deterrent if you can time it right. It does well.

Team 60: Snap Drizzle Rip
Competitive Score: 7/10
Spirit Crab, Snarly, Lifelike Toad
vs. Infinite Whelpling, Lifelike Toad, Infected Squirrel
Sometimes I think there’s an evil gnome that sneaks into my account at night and changes Surge to Whirlpool. It really hurt at the end since I couldn’t shut down the third attack from Tongue Lash. I won, but it was painful not having Surge.

Team 59: For The Gorge
Competitive Score: 4/10
Fire Beetle, Molten Hatchling, Lava Crab
vs. Anubisath Idol, Pandaren Water Spirit, Darkmoon Tonk
Stupid idol made me lose to a Pandaren Water Spirit. Okay, I hate the smelly dog face so take what I say with a grain of salt, but how many other pets can consistently take out two or more pets if it’s not hard countered? The idol does that all the time. Adders can do it, they’re getting nerfed. Direhorns could, they got nerfed. Just sayin’. By the way, this is my second highest ranked map buddy team. I like t because I don’t use any of these pets very often and there’s a cool fire theme. There’s also some serious anti-synergy with Cauterize and Scorched Earth.

Team 58: Vektorious
Competitive Score: 6/10
Son Of Animus, Fel Flame, Kovok
vs. Dread Hatchling, Macabre Marionette, Willy
This was a close one that probably would have been lost if not for my opponent back lining the undead puppet when it had Black Claw and a DoT on it. It used its undead round sitting on the back line watching. I was very pleased to watch an elemental get hit yet again by Nocturnal Strike in darkness, dang. The real difference was the heals from Touch Of The Animus for the Fel Flame. It was the sole survivor and would surely not have been if not for the extra help from the mech.

Team 57: Rebel Scum
Competitive Score: 6/10
Tiny Bog Beast, Blighted Squirrel, Sen’Jin Fetish
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Alpine Hare, Dread Hatchling
Another case of throwing three pets I like on the same team with no heavy hitter to carry them. I lost, and I hate losing to people who name their pets the most obvious name available. You named your rabbit Bugs? Clever. I hope there are no readers with a rabbit named Bugs or a raven named Poe; it’s a silly pet peeve of mine. I will forgive you if you name your idol Smelly Dog Face.

Team 56: Renegades Of Spunk
Competitive Score: 6/10
Yu’la, Spirit Crab, Vengeful Porcupette
vs. Nexus Whelpling, Murkalot, Blighthawk
I like it! Using arcane winds to bypass the stun from Falling Murloc and Ghostly Bite. It makes me want to copy this team and bring a second Murkalot team into my world. Only for some strange reason my opponent never used Falling Murloc. The final match-up was Spirit Crab versus Murkalot so I was expecting huge damage from RI/Falling Murloc. Instead my opponent spammed Blessed Hammer fruitlessly against my shields while I Snapped the humanoid to death. /shrug As well as the Vengeful Porcupette does for me I never ended up embracing it wholeheartedly as I once thought I might. Maybe it’ll be useful in WoD and I can use it more.