Is this to be the best FUMBBL Cup ever?

We sit on the cusp of our first LRB6 FUMBBL Cup. I wonder, as I sit here, if the new ruleset will open the big dance up to more than ever, to make it more inclusive and competitive, or if it’ll be a false dawn, and Majors will be as they always were.

Disclaimers first. I’ve long since given up being a member of the Fun Police. There was a time where I’d get all hot and bothered and tell people how they should be having their fun. That Majors were lame, for the few with time and lameness in their hearts cared, picking away, not the cool kids, etc, etc, blah, boring. In my old age, I’m perfectly happy with anyone that has fun how they want to have fun, shout it from the rooftops (some do), all good. If I have some negative things to say about these tournaments, please don’t instantly get defensive or take offence, there is plenty of positive Major spin around, and plenty of FUMBBL for us all to enjoy. It’s just an opinion.

Big BB tournaments are now and have always been akin to Formula One to me. There are several components to a successful campaign; the car you drive (the team you’ve built), if your engine explodes (you get diced), if someone drives into you (a horrid draw), and, of course, how good a driver you are. Three of these four are unavoidable, nay desirable in a big BB tournament. The frisson of randomness combined with who is any good is exactly what we should be signing up for. The fourth, the car you drive, is unacceptable (to me – in terms of the majority having fun) as something that separates coach a from b. Everyone who bothered to put in a somewhat decent team should at least get a fair shake.

Now, don’t get this mixed up with (spit) ‘balance’, you balance mongers out there. If you want to run a Halfling only team in the FC, bully for you, you’re the sort of fluffy, fun coach we need. Take that massive challenge on, enjoy it. There is room for us all. What I mean is those that want to compete should be allowed to compete, regardless of the time they have to build a team or the method by which they choose to do so. Inducements, at least on paper, give anyone in a one off game a chance, and substantially reduce the advantage a pimper can get over someone that gets a game in a week when knackered and only ends up with half an OK team, but can coach a bit. And that’s good. In the FC, when I pull up at the lights next to a Ferrari in my clapped out Ford Cortina, as a competitive soul, the turbo boost and go faster stripes the Inducement gods give me (boy, I’m pushing this metaphor now) gives me at least a hope of an upset. Or getting to the first corner first and making a race of it, at least.

In LRB4, I considered Majors almost entirely pointless, by and large because of this level playing field point. I used to play a very clear game if I considered entering one; ‘Will I be in a game with PeteW?’. Now, Pete is a good coach, but he is (in my opinion), the best I’ve ever seen at getting himself the perfect car (not a slight, some love that stuff, and good luck to them; Pete and I have spoken long about this, and we’re both happy we’re right). If the night before a tournament I looked at Pete’s team, whatever behemoth it was at the time and decided my average / normal team would never in a million years and 2 blitzes win the game whether I coached better or nay, I would not enter. I never entered a LRB4 Major ‘seriously’. The style of play was not for me.

I think that view, or a part of it, is shared by many, most silently just say ‘Meh’ when a cup rolls around. LRB4 Majors became a clique of the very few who had the time and will to build the perfect team, no-one else would compete, and as such, Majors could be called many things, but never competitive. Or interesting. To be competitive, all who wish to compete should be able to do so without doing the team pimping thing. That fourth prong should be removed.

LRB6 has been an interesting Major beast so far. R has been a bit of a funny one, it’s not been played much for a great part of the year, so there is a hardcore nucleus of coaches there that seem to do well in Majors, but I don’t know if that’s coaching, old LRB4 teams (certainly was at the start of the year) or simply because when you cast the Venn diagram of ‘Who cares?’ over our smaller site these days, the circle of those that say ‘Me!’ is greatly reduced.

B has had more time, more games and more will. I entered my first Major with what I considered a ‘serious’ team in January. Woodies that so happened to get to somewhere approaching what I’d consider a PeteW team. Unemployment is a wonderful thing (erm…), they sort of built themselves. I don’t know whether it was a good (low attrition) draw, good play or ‘the team’ that got me as far as a semi, but it happened. And I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I have noted that ‘average’ or ‘everyday’ teams seem to have done better than their LRB4 counterparts in B, but perhaps that’s just what I want to see.

I guess what I hope for this FC is that non primed teams do not become fodder. That 80-90% of those that enter don’t get a draw they cannot win. I hope that the ruleset makes it so that the vast majority of games in the first round (when you subtract luck and coaching) are a contest. LRB4 Majors had so, so few actual competitive contests, they had walkovers and dice. What this FUMBBL Cup, our biggest showcase, should be is an all inclusive competition where everyone feels they are on a level playing field before we kick off, not the haves and the have nots.

I’m going to bang in a so-so team. Let’s see how it goes. I’ll either get KO’d by something that I could never beat (and probably decide nothing has improved) or have a bit of fun. I recommend you do to – let’s find out all together how it will go down. In the absence of a big Pete team, currently, the question I asked myself today was ‘Can I beat Chuck Vs. Blood Bowl’? And the answer, with my crappy middle of the road, just how it is team was ‘Probably not, but there’s a chance’. And a chance is all I want.