Warbot, Snarly, Infested Bear Cub
I recently did 50 Battles: Bleeding and I came to the conclusion that Snarly and the Infested Bear Cub were an awesome combo on their own, instead of giving them another Bleed type pet I could give them another pet that synergizes well. Swapping out while Bleeding is a tactic against me, why not make it harder to swap with a Minefield. Seems like a good plan.
Here’s my line up:
P/P Warbot (Missile, Minefield, Extra Plating)
H/P Snarly (Rip, Surge, Blood In The Water)
H/P Infested Bear Cub (Diseased Bite, Hibernate, Maul)
As mentioned above, the plan is to lay down Mines, use Snarly to put up Bleeding, then force my opponent to make a hard call. Why the hard call? Blood in the Water (hereafter referred to as BITW) is a high damage, low-accuracy move. It hits for 650 damage, but only has a 50% hit rate. Unless the enemy pet is Bleeding, then BITW has a 100% hit rate. Maul also benefits from Bleeding. Maul without the Bleeding effect hits at 95% for 463 damage. Not really a great move for a three round CD. But if the enemy pet is Bleeding Maul will hit a second time for an extra 309 damage, brining the total damage to around 800. So if you are Bleeding, you really want to swap out against these pets. Well, here’s the hard call, what if you’re Bleeding AND there’s a Minefield down. You don’t want to stay in, but if you swap your incoming pet will take close to 700 damage from the Mines.
Less chat, more splat. Let’s do it!
Win: Lil’ Deathwing, Frosty, Stunted Direhorn
I put the Minefield out and planned how I was going to mitigate all the incoming nukes. I swapped to Snarly and planned to get a Rip/BITW combo on Frosty, but my opponent swapped to Lil’ DW. Mines, ouch. It didn’t help that my BITW hit without the Bleed. Snarly took the Ice Tomb, Lil’ DW got off a Bolt. I kept Snarly in to take out DW and Rip Frosty, the Bolt finished off Snarly. I brought in the Warbot, got off some mines and stayed in until it was Failsafe time. I swapped out, finished off the Bleeding Frosty with Maul. The Direhorn came in to Mines, tried to shield but was easily dispatched by my Bear thanks to no interrupts.
Win: Rocket Chicken, Clockwork Gnome, Clockwork Rocket Bot
Apparently this player doesn’t like Beasts. The Rocket Bot never threw out a Minefield, I don’t know why. This wasn’t close, everything worked out as planned (for me, that is).
Draw: Pandaren Fire Spirit, Fel Flame, Wild Golden Hatchling
My Mines were swept away by Magma wave, I was dancing around a Conflag that never came, it turned out my opponent had Cauterize instead. They got me with their choice of moves. It shouldn’t have even beed a draw, I was headed for a loss but a desperate non-Bleeding BITW saved me.
Win: Direhorn Runt, Lil’ Ragnaros, Crawling Claw
Usually when the Traps go this bad for me it’s a loss. A trap went off when my Brear was facing the Direhorn, and later versus the Claw to negate my Undead turn. However, my Warbot was able to hit two Missiles against the Direhorn, taking it out. The game ended with Snarly Surging Lil’ Rag for the win. If you have enough of my rantings you know I hate Lil’ Rag. Good job Snarly!
Loss: Fel Flame, Frosty, Darkmoon Zeppelin
The loss does point out a major weakness in my team: limited mitigation. The Warbot has Extra Plating, but I have no avoid moves. When an Ice Tomb or a Conflag is on the way I need to get out of its way, which I can’t.
Win: Living Fluid, Scalded Basilisk Hatchling, Scourged Whelpling
From over-using it I know the power of the Basilisk, I will proceed with caution. It started out as Warbot vs. Whelpling. Sometimes I approach match-ups this way: if these two pets cancel each other out, what will be left? I figured my Bleed combo wouldn’t have a problem with the Basilisk/Fluid, so I decided to just take the Scourged Whelpling down. It didn’t work as well as I planned: the Undead survived my Warbot with 5 hp, so Snarly had to take a few hits from the Whelpling while finishing it. After that I switched to the Bear and finished off both remaining opponents. My second game in a row with Bleeders that didn’t Bleed.
Win: Anubisath Idol, Tiny Snowman, Dancing Water Skimmer
Everythime I see that Idol I know I’m gonna have to bring my “A” game to beat it. It actually wasn’t too bad this time. Three weather changes for my opponent must mean they really like to control the weather. Snarly got a Bleed and Surge on the Snowman which swapped to the Aquatic when I brought in my Bear. Guess they know about Bleeding and Maul. I went back to the Warbot who was able to take out the Skimmer and get a Minefield down. The Idol walked into the Mines, took a few Diseased Bites to the face and that was it. No problems cleaning up the Snowman.
Win: Muckbreath, Fledgling Nether Ray, Harbinger of Flame
My team puts you in a tough position. Do you swap and eat the mines or do you stay in and take the Bleeding moves? This person went for the swap to their flier, who thanks to a Surge crit after the mines never got an attack off.
Win: Pet Bombling, Pygmy Direhorn, Brilliant Kaliri
They ran away too early, there was a lot that could’ve happened. What can you do if people have no gumption. By the way, I’m not eighty-five years old, I just like the word gumption.
Win: Tiny Snowman, Kun-Lai Runt, Stunted Direhorn
Seriously? They missed a Deep Freeze and ran. This person does well with this comp, I just with they had a spine sometimes.
Win: Spectral Tiger Cub, Crow, Ghostly Skull
Maybe next time my opponent wont swap their Crow into a Minefield and incoming Surge then die to the next Surge. Actually for my sake I hope that they do, birds generally give me a lot of trouble.
Win: Filthling, Polly, Death Talon Whelpguard
At one point I was considering getting rid of Extra Plating so I could have a 100% Rocket move. Here Extra Plating allowed me to stay alive long enough to get off a second Minefield, which was game changing.
Win: Pterrordax Hatchling, Flayer Youngling, Magical Crawdad
Same story as last time, Extra Plating allowed the extra Minefield. It’s often hard to take down the Crawdad, but this time I had the tools. Minefield/Rip/BITW/Swap/Maul/Swap/BITW took the Crawdad down to 60 hp, even with a Wish. It died when returning later. I’ve been seeing a lot of Pterrordaxes, which I use for many of the tamers. It reminds me of shirking my PvE leveling responsibilities. In 5.4 I’m gonna be rusty when it comes to doing the tamer dailies to level my new pets.
Win: Son of Animus, Mini Thor, Spirit of Competition
This was a fun one. Mini Thor and my Warbot played Rock Em’ Sock Em’ and Mini Thor came out the victor, but had to use his Failsafe. Snarly took Thor’s Mines, finished Thor off, out came Animus to eat more Mines. Animus kills Snarly, but is Bleeding. My Bear’s Maul takes out Animus and now it’s pretty much one on one, Infested Bear vs. Spirit of Competition. I really have an advantage here because its main attack is weak against me. And I have Hibernate, which I rarely use, but at times like this it pays off. The Spirit’s heal/Lift/weak attack combo can’t outlast my heal and normal attacks.
Win: Fiendish Imp, Scourged Whelpling, Zandalari Kneebiter
My team is good for first turns versus an Imp. I put in the Infested Bear and give the Imp a choice: take a strong Diseased Bite or Gate in my Warbot. Of course they choose the latter, now they’ve used their Gate so my Warbot can Mine and swap unscathed. It happened exactly as planned, I swapped to Snarly. Rip applies the Bleed, now the Imp either has to take a Bleeding BITW or swap. In this case my opponent made the right choice to swap, but I was getting too deep into mind games and used BITW anyways. Luckily it hit the incoming Scourged Whelpling, who is now at one-third hp. Easy enough to finish it off.
Win: Unborn Val’kyr, Lil’ Ragnaros, Feral Vermling
I had just beaten this person with a different team in a close battle. I was looking forward to another close one, but when things started going sour for them they ran away. It’s such a trend on my meta to run after seven or eight rounds when things aren’t going your way. I can’t say I do it all the time, but I’ve made some pretty miraculous comebacks. Come on people, stick it out.
Win: Pterrordax Hatchling, Magical Crawdad, Voodoo Figurine
The Crawdad was fairly useless this battle. It came into a Minefield and Rip on the swap, then it got BITW’d as it casted Wish. Knowing it would die to a Surge, my opponent swapped out to give the Figurine the Wish. The Crawdad then died in the backline from Bleeding. Too bad it’s not always this easy to take out that stinkin’ Crawdad.
Win: Wild Golden Hatchling, Harbinger of Flame, Firefly
Snarly was 81 hp away from soloing the entire team. Rip put a DoT on the dragon, the BITW hit the Fly on the swap. Surge spam and the Fly (who Swarmed) died. The Harbinger came out and spammed Magma Wave rather than finish off Snarly. Ok, Rip/BITW and Snarly continues the rampage. After a Surge to the dragon (who was seriously damaged by its own Lightning), it finally finished off my croc. So close to a Hat Trick.
Draw: Direhorn Runt, Stinker, Lil’ Ragnaros
Accuracy reduction continues to give me the most problems. Stinker’s Stench caused a Minefield to miss, a Minefield that had a Direhorn ready to walk into it. Then the winning killshot was interrupted. At least I escaped with a draw thanks to hitting on my Undead turn.
Win: Magical Crawdad, Anubisath Idol, Pterrordax Hatchling
I shouldn’t feel too proud for winning against the Idol and Crawdad. This opponent continues to open with the Pterrordax against my Warbot, which has ended in a winning Warbot and a Minefield down every time. The Idol hit both of its Rupture stuns this battle, but it wans’t enough.
With that I’ll call it quits for trying out this team. It’s exactly what I was going for, I wanted the Minefield to help my Bleed combo by making swapping out more difficult. There were many situations where I put my opponent in exactly this tough situation: take a BITW or Maul while Bleeding or eat the Minefield. The record was 17-1-2, an 85% win rate with only one loss. Not too shabby and I actually faced some decent opponents. I think I’ll name it “The Hard Call”.
Published July 2013, Patch 5.3
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