Farewell 5.4 Part XII
Almost done with the countdown of my favorite teams.
Team 20: Don’t Bite Me Bro
Competitive Score: 9/10
Spirit Crab, Fiendish Imp, Sen’Jin Fetish
vs. Winter’s Little Helper, Kun-Lai Runt, Pengu
Ahh, the name reminds me of a summer full of watching the World Cup. The team reminds me of lots of wins. At some point the imp and mask became my go to combo when I was facing tough teams. This combo is still going to well in WoD, although I may have to seek a better third since the Spirit Crab took a nerf. This battle was an easy one thanks to the imp being faster than the KLR even when slowed. That allowed me to get some Burns off while waiting for the Deep Freeze. Also Slippery Ice only caused one miss. When you take an accuracy reduction move and it doesn’t work you’ve wasted the chance to use something else, as was the case here.
Team 19: Unfortunate Yeti
Competitive Score: 6/10
Stunted Yeti, Scourged Whelpling, Fel Flame
vs. Murkalot, Blackfuse Bombling, Bonkers
It’s always fun to find a good fit for a pet that you never thought would do well in PvP. When the team wins it’s even better. That was the case with the Stunted Yeti. Since the meta had slowed down so much the 276 speed Bash of the Yeti came in handy. Along with Mangle (a weaker version of Wild Magic) the yeti has a useful move set. Bash turned out to be especially useful in this battle since my opponent cast RI on round one as I cast Bash so the buffed BFB got stunned. After putting Mangle on the mech I swapped to the Fel Flame, which killed the BFB so surprisingly fast that my opponent never got off an Armageddon. It was still scary in the end as the humanoids squared off, but another Bash made sure Murkalot never got off Falling Murkalot. I doubt my opponent would let that happen again, at least I hope not. I’m glad to say good bye to this team with such an awesome win.
Team 18: Battlegropers
Competitive Rating: 9/10
Jademist Dancer, Blighthawk, Snarly
vs. Fiendish Imp, Enchanted Broom, Giant Bone Spider
I would think that someone running a triple swap team would understand that you don’t always need to swap when it’s available. This person, however, was captain obvious with the swaps. This sequence pretty much sums up the battle: my Blighthawk would have died if swapped out by the spider, so I juked it and watched the Blighthawk get brought right back in, then it would have made sense for me to not use Ghostly Bite yet since I wasn’t dead, but I anticipated my opponent thinking this so I cast Ghostly Bite… and hit the imp on the swap. Ok, maybe I was lucky, but the battle pretty much went that way the whole time. Clean-up denied me the use of clonedance but not the win.
Team 17: Druid Of The Dance
Competitive Rating: 6/10
Moonkin Hatchling, Jademist Dancer, Swamp Croaker
vs. Anubisath Idol, Scalded Basilisk Hatchling, Direhorn Runt
Like the yeti team above this team ranks so high because I really enjoy finding a decent team for an underused pet. This time the pet is the Moonkin Hatchling. This team might be better with a more solid third like Snarly or a Spirit Crab. The speed of the basilisk ended up being the deciding factor in the end, which means I played it poorly. I should have saved the Jademist Dancer for the basilisk. Oops.
Team 16: Krushgroove
Competitive Score: 9/10
Qiraji Guardling, Living Sandling, Ashstone Core
vs. Anubisath Idol, Death Adder Hatchling, Unborn Val’kyr
This was an unfortunate one to lose. My Ashstone Core was Haunted by the valk, no biggie. One of the reasons that this team has done so well is because of the double shielding of the Ashstone Core with sandstorm and Stoneskin. Not anymore. Haunt was hitting for 86 rather than 16 like it should have been (156-70-70=16). I checked the logs, Puncture Wound hit the Living Sandling for 279 in sandstorm, when the tooltip says it should hit for 280. It looks like elementals are no longer recieving the damage reduction from sandstorm. I ran this team a few more times to test it and my fears were confirmed: Ghostly Bite hit my Living Sandling for a 975 crit (650*1.5) in the guardling’s sandstorm, which means no damage reduction. Bummer. Oh, I lost this battle. I was focusing on the numbers in the log and lost focus on the battle. I would have had a tough time even with my focus since elementals are apparently broken again.
Team 15: Kingdom Of Doing
Competitive Rating: 9/10
Spirit Crab, Spirit Crab, Death Adder Hatchling
vs. Dragonbone Hatchling, Dread Raven, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
This wasn’t a good battle for the testing of my team’s 6.0 prowess since my opponent went afk for two rounds and the mech dragon was uncommon quality. I only needed two pets for the victory so I probably would have won anyways.
Team 14: Instant Heroes
Competitive Rating: 6/10
Emerald Shale Hatchling, Sen’Jin Fetish, Stunted Direhorn
vs. Chi-Chi, Fiendish Imp, Stitched Pup
Oh wow. I forgot how well this team can do. I consider it more of a fun team than a competitive one, but sometimes it really comes through. Even though I’m not a fan of Chi-Chi when played well the bird can be hard to beat. Plus, an S/S imp is still one of the best PvP pets around. These two pets could have given me a lot of trouble, but an 86 damage reducing Stoneskin and a 172 damage reducing Trihorn Shield took care of the imp and those back line heals. That powerful elemental shield also kept the Emerald Shale Hatchling alive longer than you would expect. I thought I might lose this battle going into it but I ended up winning quite comfortably. I need to put the P/P Emerald Shale Hatchling back on my radar when it comes to creating teams.
Team 13: Doggin’ The Wax
Competitive Score: 7/10
Droplet Of Y’Shaarj, Scourged Whelpling, Alterac Brew Pup
vs. Death Adder Hatchling, Clockwork Gnome, Death Talon Whelpguard
It’s hard to give this team a higher competitive score because when countered it fails hard. When uncountered it seems like godly mcgodsauce from godsville. This battle was a hard fail. It wasn’t even a good team that I was facing, there was just no way to deal with the 292 speed adder and more importantly, no plan B.
Team 12: A Dreadful Encounter
Competitive rating: 7/10
Droplet Of Y’Shaarj, Scourged Whelpling, Snarly
vs. Anubisath Idol, Scourged Whelpling, Iron Starlette
I didn’t need a plan B this time; plan A worked just fine. My cause was helped with a few swaps from my opponent while the Scourged Whelpling was chugging away with Dreadful Breath. One thing I have learned with Dreadful Breath teams is that you want to take them down quickly or your back line will really, really suffer. One extra swap can be disastrous.
Team 11: Winterspring Warriors
Competitive Score: 7/10
Robo-Chick, Rabid Nut Varmint 5000, Alpine Hare
vs. Bonkers, Death Adder Hatchling, Tolai Hare
This is my highest ranking map buddy team by far. I really like all three of these pets and for a map buddy team it does decently in the queue. After this battle I’m ready to declare the Robo-Chick as the “Ultimate Champion Of The Universe”. I was getting beaten badly because I made some dumb choices: I should have used the RNV 5000 for the critter but I wasted its Thrash on the adder and then I forgot that Burrow was a beast move so I brought my rabbit in to eat it for 915 strong damage. What the hell was I thinking? No worries, the Robo-Chick came in and cleaned house. It used Overtune to out speed Bonkers and it used the threat of unleashing Wind-Up to force some head game swaps at the end of the battle. I came back to win with the Robo-Chick and had a refreshed bunny in the pocket. I’ve always been a fan of the Robo-Chick; Wind-Up being changed to a 100% move only increase my fanaticism thanks to no more rage-inducing miss losses. That’s enough for today, the top ten will have to wait for now.
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