“Finally, my FUMBBLitis is starting to fade. I played two games in Blackbox last night, and I feel like I'm building fluency with the medium. This is the first match that I feel like the FUMBBL medium wasn't a big hindrance to me. I'm still a little slow, but I seldom go over the four-minute mark. I made one misclick; not a big deal, but still something to work on. I also made a few legitimate mistakes, but was saved in one instance by the likelihood of succeeding anyway (I followed incorrectly early in the 2nd half, dodging on 3+/2+ with Dodge and TRR vs. just on 2+), and in the other by Enz getting a bad roll on an easy block before dodging into a hard blitz.

This game probably wasn't much fun to watch. I outblocked Enz in the first few turns, and I got kind of lucky in that I took out two of his three Dodge players early. I'd never seen a WE team without Dancers, but having seen it in action, I think it's probably feasible. Were I running his team I'd want a Catcher to start, and after getting an Apoth I'd immediately save for a WD. Still, it didn't hurt that I didn't have to face those freaky players.

We played in Sweltering Heat. He won the coin-toss, received, and I got a Perfect D. I don't think it was perfect; I swapped my Kicker and AG3 lino on accident, leading to a Treeman hit on the Kicker! I should have just left the wings as they were... I baited Enz into rushing the south sideline, where I forced and won a scrum and played keep-away for a T8TD.

In the second half, I was receiving. He lost his Tree to heat and had taken two Cas, so he had 8 men. I lost 4 men to heat. Worse, the kick went shallow. I got a Quick Snap, and decided to cage at midfield. He tried to lock me out, but I broke free for a quick score, to go up 2-0. All my guys came back, and he lost a guy, so he had a heck of a time against my SS-heavy defense. I recovered the ball and got it away to go up 3-0 on my T8. since I still had my Apothecary, I showed him how to generate diagonal blocks and he threw a garbage comp. We got a Riot, but since I was set up for a T8 defense, nothing really happened.

Side Step really paid off for me in this match; I confounded Enz with it over and over. I knew it would start to do me favors after I got three of 'em, but I wasn't really able to get great mileage out of it against frogs. Enz's Dodge players saved themselves on lots of stumbles, but when they did fall down, they went splat! His lack of Block and Leap really made my job easier, but then again, the Treeman did his job, and whichever player he chose would have missed that drive to sweltering heat.”