https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=4610702
I always like to go back and watch what happend in 0-0 games. This one was a fun one, a raucous slugfest in the middle of the pitch and no one going anywhere until it was too late. Here's a play by play as narrated by our very own Coach Oryx Wild:
They brawl it out along the sideline with roughly equal success, although notably shadowmanes loses a mummy to ko. Shadowmanes can't break through the line, and runs out of time to side swap. Gets the mummy back for the second half, otter chaos gets the ko'd beast back for an even 11 on 11. The troll is like... the dumbest troll that ever trolled. So many 1'd stupid rolls, double skulls, even a triple that resulted in a both down early in the second half. He seems to wake up mid second half and contributes a bit.
Shadowmanes pulls out a blodge ghoul and substitutes a dodge ghoul on the defense in the second half. I really disagree with this play here - with little block on the chaos and only 1 tackle, I would have definitely substituted all 4 ghouls in with zombies, looking for the steal here. They're extremely resilient to block-less chaos, and not that much more fragile. They also dodge out reasonably well for repositioning and dodging purposes. A gambit by shadowmanes and a clever surf by razmus blew this game wide open on turn 6 of the second half, when razmus was clearly struggling to break through into a scoring position. Then Razmus got blown out by a skull on a single die block, and the surf was returned by Shadowmanes, stealing the momentum back. The brawl was unmoving in the center of the pitch, and turnovers abounded. The ball got lost amidst the scrum. This time Shadowmanes managed to get a ghoul into scoring range, but razmus was able to blitz him out of scoring range.
Lessons learned:
bring 3-4 ghouls when you really need to score, especially if the opponent doesn't have a lot of block.
Don't depend on big guys, they'll break your heart every time.
If you're not breaking through on the sideline, try to start the sideswitch earlier so that you can get in easy scoring range by turn 7. This is also a drive where I would have probably used all 4 ghouls, and sideswitching would have been very easy. Despite being outstrengthed and outskilled to a degree, I think that this this matchup is heavily undead favored unless casualties skew heavily against them. Chaos struggles to deal with your blodge, and with proper play can impede you but struggles to match your speed. It's a very swingy matchup because they want to block a lot and don't have a lot of block.
I think that in this game chaos just needed to take more risks - turtling in the middle of the field hoping for overwhelming casualities is a plan, but it often doesn't result in scoring and that was true this game. Wrapping 'round the side and going for the sideline score was definitely an option, especially with only two ghouls to contend with. I don't mind playing for casualties, but I like to try to score too, and going straight through undead is quite hard and was made harder as time went on.
I always like to go back and watch what happend in 0-0 games. This one was a fun one, a raucous slugfest in the middle of the pitch and no one going anywhere until it was too late. Here's a play by play as narrated by our very own Coach Oryx Wild:
They brawl it out along the sideline with roughly equal success, although notably shadowmanes loses a mummy to ko. Shadowmanes can't break through the line, and runs out of time to side swap. Gets the mummy back for the second half, otter chaos gets the ko'd beast back for an even 11 on 11. The troll is like... the dumbest troll that ever trolled. So many 1'd stupid rolls, double skulls, even a triple that resulted in a both down early in the second half. He seems to wake up mid second half and contributes a bit.
Shadowmanes pulls out a blodge ghoul and substitutes a dodge ghoul on the defense in the second half. I really disagree with this play here - with little block on the chaos and only 1 tackle, I would have definitely substituted all 4 ghouls in with zombies, looking for the steal here. They're extremely resilient to block-less chaos, and not that much more fragile. They also dodge out reasonably well for repositioning and dodging purposes. A gambit by shadowmanes and a clever surf by razmus blew this game wide open on turn 6 of the second half, when razmus was clearly struggling to break through into a scoring position. Then Razmus got blown out by a skull on a single die block, and the surf was returned by Shadowmanes, stealing the momentum back. The brawl was unmoving in the center of the pitch, and turnovers abounded. The ball got lost amidst the scrum. This time Shadowmanes managed to get a ghoul into scoring range, but razmus was able to blitz him out of scoring range.
Lessons learned:
bring 3-4 ghouls when you really need to score, especially if the opponent doesn't have a lot of block.
Don't depend on big guys, they'll break your heart every time.
If you're not breaking through on the sideline, try to start the sideswitch earlier so that you can get in easy scoring range by turn 7. This is also a drive where I would have probably used all 4 ghouls, and sideswitching would have been very easy. Despite being outstrengthed and outskilled to a degree, I think that this this matchup is heavily undead favored unless casualties skew heavily against them. Chaos struggles to deal with your blodge, and with proper play can impede you but struggles to match your speed. It's a very swingy matchup because they want to block a lot and don't have a lot of block.
I think that in this game chaos just needed to take more risks - turtling in the middle of the field hoping for overwhelming casualities is a plan, but it often doesn't result in scoring and that was true this game. Wrapping 'round the side and going for the sideline score was definitely an option, especially with only two ghouls to contend with. I don't mind playing for casualties, but I like to try to score too, and going straight through undead is quite hard and was made harder as time went on.