Hundred Win Club Induction: Frosty Cold Rats
H/H Bone Serpent (Bone Barrage, Call Darkness, Nocturnal Strike)
S/S Frostfur Rats (Flurry, Crouch, Call Darkness)
S/S Nightshade Sproutling (Lash, Call Darkness, Blinding Poison)
As I mentioned in yesterday’s video I took a break from getting The Warriors to one hundred and decided to focus on Frosty Cold Rats. The reason for this divergence was the prevalence of sunny day teams over the past few days. Sunny day is a weather that is extremely difficult to beat without your own weather. So not only did I decided to bring my own weather, I decided on bringing darkness to screw with the healing, and not just one darkness pet, but three. I successfully chased off the healers, and by that time one hundred wins was within my grasp.
The strategy is simple: use the 1st-tier Bone Serpent as a hard hitter to take down pets fast and also use it to absorb damage (yeah, it can do all that, which is why it’s at the top). Then the rat and the sproutling will use their speed to clean up. Against triple undead AoE I will often start with the rat because it has such low health, but usually the Bone Serpent starts off.
Frosty Cold Rats has been interesting in the sense that it does very well against a lot of 1st-tier pets, but can often struggle against average teams. Let’s hope that I get to beat up on some big guys. Right now the record is 96-22-2. I doubt I’ll be able to knock out four in a row, but I’ll try.
Battle 121
win vs. MPD, Pandaren Water Spirit, Stormwing
I thought I might have a weather war on my hands with Stormwing, but the flyer turned out to have Lift-Off instead of Call Lightning. I took Stormwing below half with my Bone Serpent, then when the MPD came in I swapped to my rat. A decoy was placed then quickly taken out by using Flurry. The Pandaren Water Spirit came in to lay its double nuke, then Stormwing came in but took a crit on the swap from my rat then was taken out on the next round by a use of Flurry. The double nuke didn’t kill or stun the rat so my opponent fled.
Record: 97-22-2
Battle 122
win vs. Puddle Terror, Puddle Terror, Emerald Proto-Whelp
Let’s call it a bad day for healing, and an even worse day for dragons. This is one of the teams that made me start using Frosty Cold Rats regularly. My opponent attempted to force sunny day by swapping between the two Puddle Terrors, but I would swap as soon as I cast darkness so that I had another darkness ready to go. I used Nocturnal Strike on one of the Puddle Terrors, then Call Darnkess on the EPW. Good times. For me. My opponent fled after round fourteen.
Record: 98-22-2
Battle 123
win vs. Blighthawk, Axebeak Hatchling, Jademist Dancer
I almost always start with my Bone Serpent but in this case I decided to start with the Nightshade Sproutling. Why? Facing a clonedance team can be hazardous to your win rate so I tried to stop the tactic in its tracks. Would the Blighthawk fall for it? Blinging Poison then… Cyclone. Yes! I brought the rat in and was able to kill the Jademist Dancer that had come in thanks to Crouch’s damage mitigation. The Blighthawk got another chance at Cyclone, but by now it was too late, I was way ahead. To make matters worse for my opponent the Blighthawk missed Ghostly Bite on the immortal round, ouch. One more to go!
Record: 99-22-2
Battle 124
loss vs. Amber Moth, Luyu Moth, Oasis Moth
This team has beaten Frosty Cold Rats numerous times over the past few days. The rat and sproutling are worthless versus fast flyers so my only hope is to bring them below half with my undead pet. The problem is that when I do, I swap to a faster pet to kill the moth, then I’m facing another faster moth. If rng is bad for me then the Bone Serpent can’t afford a swap as was the case here. The first Bone Barrage missed all three times, then the Bone Serpent was put to sleep. I usually come right back with a Lost Of Lordaeron team and laugh as Arcane Explosion spam takes out over 90% of this team’s health, but I refrained in order to write this. Next time lamer moth team, next time.
Record: 99-23-2
Battle 125
win vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Bone Serpent, Bronze Whelpling
I graciously present to you the newest member of the Hundred Win Club, Frosty Cold Rats. The rat was a triple hitting nightmare for the two undead pets (see how rng always seems to even out). The enemy Bone Serpent made a desperate attempt to hit my elemental with a Nocturnal strike but failed. With all three of my pets having Call Darkness the dragon was always going to be in danger. It took 125 battles to get to one hundred wins, which is good but not great. To put it in perspective Owngrinders only took 107. Anything under 140 is acceptable as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully The Warriors will be the next inductees.
Record 100-23-2
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That first screenshot is art – the composition, the flare behind the dragon, the beady red eye of the rat, the dispassionate blankness of the PWS.
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@Disco
I also dislike Sunny weather teams, but I was wondering if you have ever considered a damage dealing team instead of a stall variety. It occurred to me earlier when I was playing around with the Spawn of G and the Swallow You Whole ability and the extra damage it deals to sub 25%.
Soul of the Aspects seems like a great weather pet for this:
Cast Sunlight – sets weather, does damage + triggers dragonkin racial
Cast Solar Beam – 642+321 (+50% racial bonus) … should kill the first pet (963+481 damage I think)
If it doesn’t kill the pet it would be quite low and after the recovery you should be able to use the first slot ability triggering the racial again.
Then you have Spawn of G for Lightning Shield, Thunderbolt which should bring the second pet to the 25% threshold thanks to Sunlight. SYW kills it.
The Hydraling might be better then Spawn of G because of the shield.
As for a third the Lovebird Hatchling might be useful since it is S/S breed and has a stun plus Predatory strike that deals 420 damage (double to 840 if below 25%).
I was wrong, using Sunlight doesn’t trigger the dragonkin racial even though all enemy pets are brought below 50%. So you have to go Sunlight, Slot 1, Solar Beam.
Also this doesn’t counter other healing teams all that well (like Hyjal Wisp or Magical Crawdad).
Using Sunny Weather shouldn’t bring the enemy below 50%. It should bring them down to 100/150 = 66.666666% health
That’s what my mistake was. So the other rotation of weather, slot 1, then solar beam works effectively.
I’ve tried to use SOTA many times and I’ve never done well with it. The 252 speed always seems to thwart me. I do like the idea of a damage sunny day team, too. I messed around with the Ashleaf Spriteling to this end but again wasn’t successful. I will give your team a whirl.
Hiya all
Looking at this team makes me wonder about the Frostfur rat’s breed…
with the speedy nightshade’s blind to offer protection..why not try an h/h breed.
This breed has 1664hp and 276 speed ..sure it has only 256pwr but vs undead thats lots when you flurry. The bone serpent is there to deal with decoys already
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When a healthy pet (mr wiggles-1500+) has crouch it lasts a long time…awesome in pet pvp..the rat has the bonus of stun resistance
Also..darkness wrecks all healing strategies so well..just go with it
Also worth a look is the h/p frosty rat
1485/285/276
Nice pvp stats ..esp with crouch for durability
I’ve used both the H/H and the P/P before and the one thing that I miss is being able to out speed imps. Sure, the rat isn’t a great counter to the imp because Flurry does weak damage, but darkness helps against the back line healing. In most non-imp battles I think you are right that a different breed would work better. I think both the H/H and H/P are good. I need to chuck my P/P and go catch an H/P.
I finished 100 battles with this team (the first 20 were with a slower Nightshade Sprout) and my record is 86-12-2.
It’s damn good against my meta at the moment. Constantly facing Graves, Weeb, MPD, Murkalot, Unborn Valk etc.
The Sprout’s blind really messes with the Murkalot/Weeb combo, while the rat nullifies MPD and tears any undead apart.
Most losses were against Imps or Terroclaws, but that’s probably mostly my fault for the odd bad decision here and there.
Thanks for this team!
Nice work! You played it better than I did when we compare records.
I think my meta is more dominated by the teams it does well against. At least for the past week anyway.