A Constructed Team

Second Place – March Article Contest
by: Jamie Price

7 – Daxin Firesworn

5 – Azarak Wolfsblood

8 – Thangal

20 Honor

Greetings!  This is Black Abbot and I’ll discuss a constructed team that I’m having some success with and that is certainly worth a try.  It includes Daxin Firesworn, Azarak Wolfsblood, and Thangal.  This outfit runs at 20 honor, so it’s a bit high compared to the low honor teams that have been fielded lately, but is also lower than the Haruka, Haruka, Thangal (HHT) team and some Haruka, Thangal, variable (HTX) teams that are played.

For Action Bar Cards, I saddle Daxin with Shadowburn and a variable Warlock card, usually either Fear or Corruption, but sometimes Death Coil.  Shadowburn is a great multi-purpose card in that it can destroy a totem and ready, kill a pet then ready, or just amplify a Warlock’s attack for just one tick.  I often decide which other cards to use based on the other team and the map on which we’re playing.  On the Ashenvale Starter Map, for instance, I don’t use Fear because the map is smaller than the deluxe maps.  Corruption is a good pick for DOT (Damage Over Time), but Death Coil can move a mini away from the VP spot or can move a mini away to disrupt adjacency effects.  Death Coil can also finish off a character with only one health left, so it acts like Execute, but at only one damage.  Moreover, Daxin can lay down some impressive firepower when he’s got Shadowburn.  In the span of four ticks, he tosses nine dice – one tick for Shadowburn, three ticks for his regular attack.  If he crits on any of these attacks, he heals two damage!

Azarak brings some ranged melee firepower to the team whereas Daxin and Thangal deal the ranged magic attacks.  Azarak’s Action Bar Cards are almost always Hunter’s Mark and Arcane Shot.  The sidebar card I’ve brought is Multi-Shot, but I like the others better.  Use Hunter’s Mark first on your target, especially someone with low armor, and you get one reroll on that attack!  Plus, anyone else that attacks with a ranged attack gets a reroll too.  This helps Daxin try for a crit.  I’ve actually marked a target and attacked another as well.  Arcane Shot is good to attack low resist minis because it makes a hunter’s melee attack magic, so Azarak suddenly is throwing five magic!  If Azarak crits, he puts a minus move counter on the target.  That will slow someone down, and even though it comes off at the end of ticks 5/10, it still helps, especially if Daxin uses Fear.  That makes one long walk back at minus one move!

Thangal is an integral part of any team and is just so here.  His ability to let adjacent characters reroll one die for either attack or defense in monumental, and when it is coupled with the effects of Hunter’s Mark, an attacking character gets two rerolls.  If your character is on a hill, make that three rerolls!  For Action Bar Cards, I use Starfire and either Bear Form or Cat Form, depending on how many magic or melee attackers my opponent brings to the table.  Moreover, both Bear and Cat forms give Thangal the ability to melee attack those characters with low armor.  Two other excellent choices are Entangling Roots to stop a character or Rejuvenation to heal yourself at the end of ticks 5/10.  Starfire deals out some major firepower and is quite good to soften up a target for Azarak or Daxin to finish off, or to just outright destroy a character by itself.  After I use Starfire, I enter either Bear or Cat Form to give Thangal some extra protection.

Regarding match play, I’ve had success with this team.  In my last game, my opponent played the tournament winning team from Darkmoon Faire in San Francisco.  That team included two Azarak Wolfsblood and one Morganis Blackvein.  It seemed my opponent had nearly the same Action Bar Cards as Corle did, but my opponent used Call Bloodclaw on both his hunters instead of Call Fury.

Both teams are broken down as follows:

Azarak Wolfsblood – Hunter’s Mark, Arcane Shot

Daxin Firesworn – Corruption, Shadowburn

Thangal – Bear Form, Starfire

Azarak Wolfsblood – Call Bloodclaw, Hunter’s Mark

Azarak Wolfsblood – Call Bloodclaw, Hunter’s Mark

Morganis Blackvein – Flamestrike, Mana Potion

As we maneuvered into positions during the first few ticks, my opponent’s Azaraks deployed their Bloodclaws.  One such Bloodclaw found itself in Daxin’s range and was quickly destroyed with a Shadowburn attack.  Four hits out of four dice are very nice as the pet was destroyed and Shadowburn was readied for another attack.  Daxin continued to lay down attacks, first with Shadowburn.  I actually put Corruption on an Azarak, but that Azarak found itself in range of too many attacks and was destroyed by tick 5 before Corruption could work.

Thangal did some nice damage with a Starfire attack on Moraganis, killing him outright with the blast and scoring a crit for an extra tick up.  Morganis had already attacked once, so adding three more ticks to him got him out of the way for a while.  Thangal then entered Bear Form which helped to protect him from melee attacks.  One Bloodclaw never scored a single hit against his extra armor and defense rerolls!  The Azarak that spawned that particular Bloodclaw was killed, thus removing two threats at once.

In defense of my opponent, he did kill every one of my characters at least once during play, emphasizing the hidden powers and unexpected powers of the Azarak, Azarak, Morganis team.  At just 16 honor, you are getting close to winning by killing three characters!  I just happened to deal out more damage faster with Daxin’s and Thangal’s attacks, coupled with Arcane Shot and Hunter’s Mark.  The rerolls that Thangal enabled were critical in saving both his life as well as others, plus allowing for more damage to be dealt out.

This team is still a work in progress and needs more testing, but it is certainly worth taking a look at…if you have a Daxin.  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, so if I had to play it over again, I would have put Fear on Daxin as the only change to push one of his minis away and hope for a crit to heal Daxin by two.

Good luck!