origami
Joined: Oct 14, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 22:42 |
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It may just be my imagination, but it seems that the teams on fumbbl have gotten progressively bashier over my time here. I took a break for several months, and upon my return, I noticed a couple of things. First, there were fewer elf teams looking for a match. Secondly, the strength teams were a lot bashier - more MB, DP, and especially a lot more Claw/RSC chaos/skaven teams.
Looking at the stats of the top ten teams created:
Race: #of Teams
Orc 4435
Skaven 3593
Human 3053
Dark Elf 3040
Chaos 2983
Wood Elf 2977
Dwarf 2693
Chaos Dwarf 2398
Undead 2288
Norse 2213
Your have to go down to number 4 to find an elf team, and it's DE - the most bashy of the elf races. However, there have been a pretty good number of elven teams teams created overall.
The approximate breakdown of the top ten races by team numbers is:
strength: orcs, Chaos, Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf - 12509
middle: skaven, human, undead, norse - 11147
agility: Dark Elf, Wood Elf - 6017
Fairly Even between strength and middle, but definitely lower for the agility teams.
Skaven might go in the agility category, but I tend to put them in the middle due to their bashy potential and only four ag 4 players. Really, they are more speed focused than anything else.
It would be interesting to see what the numbers would be like if we could just look at more recent team creation, but I wasn't able to find a way to do this. |
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thesquig
Joined: Apr 11, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 22:54 |
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I find that elves will very rarely if ever play against bashy teams. Ok there might be some coachs out there that are totally against this ideal, but of most of the elven teams I've challenged and then been decline I've checked the match records to find lots and lots human and elves been played and zero bashy teams. The higher the CR the worse it gets, I even had one guy admit it to me the other day that he was a cherry picker and only wanted to play elves.
I've always thought that bashy teams have more appeal than the agility teams, and this is something I've noticed about most people, although there are a feq dedicated elf players out there.
Perhaps bunnypucher has killed too many.
And after all, they are meant to be a dying race, so you'll never hear me complaining.
Squig |
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Jarnageddon
Joined: Nov 04, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 22:56 |
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Could be all the EMU's fault, those damn foulers and killers of elves.
Please don't look at my avatar. |
_________________ Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with something bigger and heavier. |
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Nordmark
Joined: Sep 09, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 22:59 |
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Nice one Squig.
COMMERCIAL: Watch out for E.L.F. teams. Those elves will play anybody.
But it appears to be true. A lot less elves out there even since I started. And I haven´t been here that long. |
_________________ ”The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.” - H.P. Lovecraft |
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BunnyPuncher
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:02 |
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Now where did you people get the idea that I did not like elves? |
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Darkwolf
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:07 |
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I retired my high elf team and my dark elf team in January. I have said fak it to the 4ag ones. I have now started my own BOYCOTT Chaos motto and have not played a chaos team in over 3 weeks. At one point, all I would see was chaos lfg and being asked by coaches to play their chaos. I tell them outright, I have boycotted chaos. If we just ignore chaos for awhile, hopefully the trend will die out and more elves will be lfg. |
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mstrchef13
Joined: Dec 11, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:10 |
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I can see why there aren't as many elf teams has before, even though I wasn't here before. As an elf coach, I'd like my team to make it to higher TR and be successful. I could play bashy teams, but if I happen onto the one out of three bashy coaches who sets out to destroy my team, then my team is irreparably dead. Should I take the chance? That's the question that many elf coaches ask themselves, and I believe that increasingly the answer is "no thanks". Call me a coward (someone else did in another post), but it's an honest feeling of what is happening here.
And, before I get accused of being a cherry picking wuss, my dark elves are ELF members, and I've got other TR100 elf teams waiting for the ELF to allow members to have two teams. |
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LordSnotball
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:21 |
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As an elven coach i don't cherrypick normally... 90% of my agility oponents were needed for recovery matches rather than cherry picking... on average, an elven team that dodges out of harms way might lose, but doesn't get hurt much...
and once u get strip ball, u can actually win occassionally too...
and yes, i have played ppl out to destroy my team, and at the end of the day, who cares? they are just some pixels on the screen playing looney tune sounds that get beaten up!
it also has to do with attitude... if the elven coach doesn't play bashy teams, he doesn't learn how to outbash them *cough* last match against an orc team my team got beaten to pulp... and the first half i definitely outbashed him... second half was sorta equal, with MB making the difference for the orcs...
but then again, i'm one of those 'lame' dark elf coaches... the only team i ever found to have the allrounded flexibility i like *shrug* |
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Cloggy
Joined: Sep 23, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:22 |
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I recently played one of my elf teams against Aequitas' killer chaos and here http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match&op=view&id=653948 is what happens when you do accept. Obviously an elf team can only afford to play those monsters once in a very long while, simply because otherwise they will cease to exist.
On the other hand it does get quite boring to play them only against other elves, because the funniest (read unpredictable & tactically diffcult) matches are played between teams with different strenghts and weaknesses.
I think the mix between the fact that the non elvish teams become more violent and the elf teams get boring to play might be a part of why elfdom is on the decline. |
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liquidorange
Joined: Feb 08, 2005
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:27 |
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I'm with msterchef on this one as well -- I play almost exclusively the agility and middle of the road teams and I have to be very selective in who I accept matches from. That's not to say that I won't play bashy teams -- I play them quite often. Took my lumps with a skaven team just the other day that had four players with claw, one with mighty blow and one other with both claw and razor sharp claws. It nearly decimated my team -- killed two players, niggled two others -- but I had a blast doing it (and pulling off a 2-1 win, by the way).
The key for me is this: will my opponent play to win the game (ie, strategic fouls and blocks that either go for spps or towards a larger goal of scoring touchdowns) or will they play like an ass: fouling in the 16th turn because they felt they got bad dice rolls, crowd surfing a player for no reason other than watch them get hurt.... or my personal favorite: fouling late in the game in the interest of 'race-killing'. |
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bogh
Joined: Oct 31, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:35 |
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Another mostly agility coach here.
Elf teams are pretty hard to build, so at higher tr´s you will have more bashy teams. But the numbers quoted in the first post don´t suggest less elven teams - all of the three categories have roughly 3000 teams per race in ´em on average. So people start as many agility teams, but fewer survive. No real surprise there.
Like all the others I too play bashy teams, but the real monsters are a "once in a while" thing. No elf team can play three matches in a row against multiple rsc/claw fellas. But a bashy, not a killer, team is no problem. Hell, chances for a win are even better there. |
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Wizard
Joined: Jul 09, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 21, 2005 - 23:51 |
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I think fun factor weighs greatly into this debate. I accept almost any challenge (maybe not you, dreadclaw!) but if i see a team that is going to reduce me to 5 players by the second half, there is absolutly no fun for me in the match. I like close games, where every move you are thinking about countering what the opponent has just setup - instead of watching dp/rsc/claw carve through your team like butter after Get the Ref.
I have an orc team for bashy opponents and an elf team for like wise teams. If i want to counter a team with bash, i use the orcs. Where as a game with my elf is usually a game of ball playing. It just makes sense.
If you slam all those players that wont play agianst your 16 man dp/rsc/claw for every member of the team when you challenge a hapless halfling or elf team with all ball playing skills, it just dont make sense!!
If you think your going to have fun, go for it!
Everyone else's idea of a fair match up and fun are different - if a noob gets smacked by a cherry picker it will be a lesson well learnt, and he wont accept a challenge like that again because it was'nt fun. Done.
Have fun people! |
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Azurus
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 22, 2005 - 00:00 |
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LordSnotball wrote: | but then again, i'm one of those 'lame' dark elf coaches... the only team i ever found to have the allrounded flexibility i like *shrug* |
I too am a 'lame' dark elf coach. My longest running team took a really big hit once (in about their 25th game), and have played the majority of their next 50-ish games with 8 or 9 players.
This is because i try to play against a good balance of teams, even when I'm undermanned. (It also didn't help that in the team's early days I didn't know how to build them for survivability. Now I do, and my younger DEs are performing much better) Thing is, playing agaisnt bashy teams is a good way of getting wins, even at the expense of your team's longevity. It's other elves my guys can't handle, I have a negative record agaisnt 3 of the 4 elf races.
I can understand why there are less elves about (and I believe there are, at least lfg-ing openly). It can be painful to play with a crippled squad in almost every single game, particularly with the recent rise in killer teams.
If I played in ranked more often, I think I'd probably switch to Undead. Fortunately, I only have time to play one team at the moment, and they're in U so I can avoid most of this nonsense about cherrypicking.
My point is, an elf team which plays around 50-50 bahsy-agility will be amost permanently mauled, so I can see why people don't want to do it. I quite enjoy it myself, but what do I know...
EDIT: damn my typing's getting bad...still not gonna remove all those speling mistakes tho |
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Nordmark
Joined: Sep 09, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 22, 2005 - 00:09 |
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The problem is that elves tend to die. It´s fare more rare for a "stronger" team to utterly die. I had an elven team once and they died. I then created a dwarven team (hating myself for it) and they have survived so far. Therefore I no longer have an elven team but I have a basher team. Perhaps that´s the problem. Your agility ones die and you create a bash team that doesn´t.
I too am one of those lame DE coaches. Just love the style of their play. |
_________________ ”The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.” - H.P. Lovecraft |
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Uncle_Smed
Joined: May 22, 2004
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  Posted:
Feb 22, 2005 - 00:40 |
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I'm a lame Wood Elf coach... currently playing high elves.
And while there's a lot of talk about "killer" bashy teams and whatnot.. I've found in my experience (about 150 games with elves in both fumbbl and TT), that you can build one heck of a nasty bashy elf squad.
You don't have to compromise on ball playing skills too much, just pick up a DP (ANY elf team with an ounce of survival trait should have one, elves foul better than any other race in Bowl), take mighty blow on some of your doubles rolls and voila.. bashy elves.
Still have a large number of blodge players (who are handy for assists and not falling over), the odd tackle player, strip baller or two, a guy with leap.. a pass blocker.. etc..
That said, if you don't roll any doubles, well.. you're very unlucky for one, and MB just isn't an option for two.
Add a dash of luck and a modicum of ruthlessness.. and you get elves like my current ones in Unranked, and my TT elves after two seasons of a fixed draw league (they reduced an Undead team with two mummies, a vampire, 2 ST 4 wights and a few block guard zombies/skellies to 3 on the pitch in the first drive of 6 turns and retained all 11 of their own).
Both teams are pretty mean, and have good CAS and TD ratios.
Here's the Fumbbl Helves I was talking about. |
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