Bleeding Blight

H/P Blighted Squirrel (Woodchipper, Crouch, Stampede)
H/P Infested Bear Cub (Infected Bite, Bash, Maul)
H/P Snarly (Rip, Surge, Blood In The Water)

This is an old team, I actually did a write-up about it on 5/25/14. So why am I resurrecting it now? My first two “Journey to 100” teams both had a superstar on them: the MPD and the imp. I wanted to make a more challenging team this time around, a team without any of the meta superstar pets. Plus, I’ve always been a fan of bleed teams. A few years ago someone described the site as being about “bleed teams and the Spirit Crab” or something to that effect. Yeah, I was really into them.

It’s been a long time since I have used a bleeding team regularly so I am ready to jump back on the bleed wagon. So how does this strategy work? Both Woodchipper and Rip apply the bleeding effect to enemy pets. Both Maul and Blood in the Water are enhanced when an enemy pet is bleeding. Maul hits twice while the enemy pet is bleeding, Blood in the Water goes from 50% accuracy move to 100% accuracy when the enemy pet is bleeding. So the strategy is very simple: apply bleed then use Maul or Blood In The Water.

There are a number of pets that can apply the bleeding effect. I like Snarly the most because it is aquatic, it is a good breed, and it has self synergy because it can both apply and benefit from the bleeding effect. My all time favorite partner for Snarly is the Infested Bear Cub. It has Maul, a nice health pool and it is undead. I was actually hoping to use the Darkshore Cub instead of the Infested Bear Cub, but at 1400 health I just don’t see it doing well against AoE teams. Sorry sleek looking beast bear, the status quo prevails.

For a third pet I wanted another to apply the bleed. I chose the Blighted Squirrel because it is an amazing pet in its own right. It can often take out a pet and a half then leave the next pet with the Shattered Defenses debuff. Crouch on an undead pet makes it las a long time. I’ll usually start with this guy in order to leave a bleeding, debuffed pet for Snarly or the bear. The down side to the Blighted Squirrel is it’s lack of an attack that can hit through shields or sandstorm. Sandstorm can be worked around by the bear using Infected Claw against the idol, but shields are a big problem.

So here I go, starting my third journey to 100 wins. I hope to get there in 140 battles, but 150 seems more likely. Wish me luck with this classic team!

September 20, 2015
D: Graves, Weebomination, Bone Serpent (0-0-1)
This was a good news and bad news situation. The bad news was that a Surge miss prevented me from gwinning. The good news was that my team can han hang with the big boys. I started with the Blighted Squirrel and kept it in until it perished. The squirrel was able to bleed then debuff Graves before it back lined, then it took out the Weebomination. Looking back at the logs I was suprised that the squirrel also finished off Graves. I guess it’s not a two for one since so much back line damage was done, but that’s still impressive. My two other pets held up well enough to all the undead AoE, which makes me think I could have played this different. I wanted to burn down the enemy quickly before it took out my back line so I never used Crouch. I think if I had used Crouch I could have gotten a debuff on the Bone Serpent, possible resulting in a win. Good to know for next time.

W: Frostwolf Ghostpup, Iron Starlette, Lil’ Bling (1-0-1)
Man oh man how Wind-Up can bring the pain. Even through Crouch. My Blighted Squirrel lost the head to head against the Iron Starlette, but it did force failsafe and left the iron ball with only 126 health. I was afraid that Lil’ Bling was going to be too difficult, but I was able to power through its failsafe with the ol’ one-two, as I call it. What’s the ol’ one-two? It’s when Maul brings a mech to zero health with the first hit, then stands there to wait for the mech to res from failsafe, then immediately finishes the mech off with the second Maul. I love it! It ended up not being that close.

L: Graves, MPD, Nexus Whelpling (1-1-1)
Graves is beatable, the MPD is more difficult, put them together and you have a deadly combo. I’m not stressing over winning just one out of three battles so far. Not many of my regular teams can beat the MPD/Graves combo. Usually when this player comes on they spam Graves/MPD, so I might have to run some Rick Frostly to chase them back to their hovel.

W: Graves, Land Shark, Fel Flame (2-1-1)
It’s nice to see Graves go down. The Blighted Squirrel was the MVP. I think I’ll be saying that a lot.

D: Slithershock Elver, Zomstrok, Vengeful Porcupette (2-1-2)
Somehow I felt that I was playing against myself, even though I’ve never used this same combination of pets. I may have been able to win by using Bash at the end when I thought that Spirit Spike was going to be used. It was used, and I could have won, but instead I went for the draw. I don’t know why since a draw gets me nothing.

W: Pengu, Toothy, Baby Blizzard Bear (3-1-2)
I barely won thanks to the misses caused by Slippery Ice. I’m officially scared of going all the way to 100 wins now.

L: Rotten Little Helper, Mr. Bigglesworth, Tiny Snowman (3-2-2)
Ugg. I just started tonight, maybe I can take this page down before anyone notices.

September 21st
W: Ominous Flame, Sky-Bo, Stitched Pup (4-2-2)
What’s that, a win? I wanted something a little more challenging and now I have it so I shouldn’t be so worried about losing. In this battle I ended up with the end game situation that I aim for: there is only one enemy pet remaining and it is bleeding. A Maul from the Infested Bear Cub sent the ominous flame to pet heaven.

W: Anubisath Idol, Dark Whelpling, Stitched Pup (5-2-2)
This was closer than it should have been since sandstorm caused Maul to miss against a bleeding idol. Infected Claw ended up getting the job done, but I was worried about another miss the whole time. Wow how pet battles have changed, remember when just about every move had a chance to miss? So stressful, I like things the way they are now. Well, except for 95% accuracy moves being gimped. I think I’ll quit for now and enjoy being above a 50% win rate.

September 22nd
W: Murkalot, Graves, Fragment Of Anger (6-2-2)
And to think at one point I used to run with Hibernate instead of Bash. Bash came to the rescue by stunning Graves as the big ugly swapped in for RI. I swapped to the Blighted Squirrel immediately and it stole the show, taking out Graves and getting the FoA to 0 health. Snarly didn’t do any damage against the immortal round of the FoA, then it died by a Falling Murloc, but the bear took out Murkalot with four Infected Bites.

L: Bonkers, Pandaren Monk, Unborn Val’kyr (6-3-2)
Damn I should have quit while I was ahead. Epic win followed by embarrassing loss. It’s no secret that I hate losing to Bonkers, but a valk and a monk as well? It’s time to quit battling forever. Really what happened is crappy rng. Two stuns by the idiot monkey, one on a coin toss made life hard. A valk crit at the end took away all hope of a comeback. Getting stunned by the faster monk was just sad.

September 23rd (7-3-2)
W: Menagerie Custodian, Iron Starlette, Son Of Animus
This was close, requiring the undead racial for the win. Where’s my imp when I need him?

W: Son Of Animus, Menagerie Custodian, Frostfur Rat (8-3-2)
I was glad to have the bleed against the critter. My Blighted Squirrel went head to head with the rat to start off the battle, the undead pet won. It then left the bird shattered and bleeding for my bear. After a Nocturnal Strike miss, a crit on the second hit of Maul killed the bird. Now it was two full health pets against one. SOn Of Animus couldn’t make the comeback.

D: MPD, Unborn Val’kyr, Infinite Whelpling (8-3-3)
I thought I might get my record a step closer to respectability but the MPD thought otherwise. Stampede is good at taking out decoys, but is a weak move when you can’t get the bleed up first. In the future I will try to get the bleed up first before taking down the decoy, but this will mean a wasted turn, plus the MPD can always swap out after using Decoy then Thunderbolt.

W: MPD, Chrominius, Iron Starlette (9-3-3)
I want to call it a quality win because of the MPD, but then there’s Chrominius, so that diminishes the glory to some extent. In this battle the ol’ one-two became the ol’ one-two-three-four since I was able to Maul through both of the mechanical racials with my egg-infested teddy bear. Hmm, 60% win rate, at this rate I’m behind the one hundred fifty battles to get to one hundred goal that I set.

W: Crusher, Fragment Of Desire, Iron Starlette (10-3-3)
A demo spammer, fun. The Infested Bear Cub took out the humanoid then went to back line with over 500 health. The Blighted Squirrel came in to face the Fragment Of Desire, there was no stun to help out my opponent so the squirrel won that one easily, again thanks to Crouch. The Blighted Squirrel left a bleed on the Iron Starlette for the other two of my pets to finish off.

September 24th
W: Cinder Kitten, Muckbreath, Darkmoon Zeppelin (11-3-3)
Everything was already going as planned when Missile hit low, leaving my undead squirrel with 1 health as the zep died, which allowed it to get both the bleed and debuff on the Cinder Kitten. In comes Snarly for a 1950 damage Blood in the Water. Ouch. Snarly put a bleed on the opposing croc, then the bear finished off the aquatic for the win.

October 3rd
W: Graves, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Tolai Hare Pup (12-3-3)
Before I start going on about how awesome I am let me say that the rabbit wasn’t used properly; my undead squirrel took out the rabbit and got the bleed up on Graves. That shouldn’t happen, if the rabbit was losing then it should have been back lined for later use. I’ve been lamenting my choice of not using Blood and Paws for this journey since that team is more fun and it’s actually been doing better this team (currently 22-6). However, I don’t think that the Darkshore Cub would have been able to withstand the back line damage and then come out to finish off the MPD so the praise should go to the Infested Bear Cub for this win. I would pet my undead bear except I would get those slimy, sticky egg thingys all over my hand. I will praise it from a far.

W: Alpine Foxling, Emperor Crab, Bone Serpent (13-3-3)
Oh yeah, now I’m on a roll. The fox cast Howl on my squirrel so I swapped to Snarly. I was afraid it would swap but it didn’t so I was able to take it out with a BITW and a Surge. The Bone Serpent came in so I brought my squirrel back in; it was able to take the Beone Serpent down to zero health. The Infested Bear and Snarly finished off the Emperor Crab.

January 13, 2016
D: Unborn Val’kyr, Empowered Manafiend, Servant Of Demidos (13-3-4)
Another draw, so many draws. I was not expecting the Surge Of Power to come when it did, and that’s what kept me from winning. That puts me at 65%, should I have expected better?

W: Lil’ Bling, Lil’ Bling, Son Of Sethe (14-3-4)
Once again the Blighted Squirrel served its purpose: it took out the first pet and left a bleed on the second. My opponent swapped out a bleeding pet only to get hit with a Blood In The Water anyways. I hate that so much. When the Son Of Sethe was taken out due to a bleeding Maul my opponent knew it was over and fled.

W: Fiendish Imp, ghastly Kid, Death Adder Hatchling (15-3-4)
Ok, there’s one I can be proud of. There was a lot of swapping, there was a lot of crouching by the Blighted Squirrel against the snake. The winning move happened when my opponent kept the Ghastly Kid in for a bleeding Maul.

W: Alpine Foxling, Gilnean Raven, Anodized Robo Cub (16-3-4)
I was able to hit another non-bleeding BITW. The Robo Cub had even better luck with Demolish, but once again Crouch allowed my Blighted Squirrel to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. In the end I had the fox all set up with a bleed and Shattered Defenses for my Snarly. Poor fox.

February 12, 2016

W: Graves, Fragment Of Desire, Magical Crawdad (17-3-4)
I chose Blighted Bleed to specifically counter the team I faced, which was being used by “the truck stop lady” (the name I have for a common opponents who uses the word “hun” in all of her pet names). My sniping worked well as I came away with the victory. The Blighted Squirrel did its job against the FoD, killing it and having one round of undead goodness left to put the bleed on Graves. My bear handled Graves well and I had the battle completely in hand until a crit made it closer. I had planned on casting Bash on Graves then backling to reset Maul for use against the crawdad, but a Graves crit denied me that opportunity. The battle came down to Snarly versus the scumbag crawdad, Snarly prevailed.

W: Ethereal Soul Trader, Brightpaw, Chrominius (18-3-4)
The Blighted Squirrel was once again the super hero, taking down the trader and leaving Brightpaw with half health and bleeding. It was quite easy after that.