I have been reading about the variety of races in the blackbox lately and I thought I'd write a blog about it. I played over 100 blackbox games now and my BWR is a healthy 166.85 even with only BBR of 143.40 (at posting).

mrkevin wrote about the variety of the blackbox:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=blog&coach=45942

and he's right ... at least about the distribution of teams in the blackbox:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=blackbox

His distribution of opponents doesn't seem out of sync with what you should expect in the box:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=coachstats&coach=45942&division=10

and is not really so diifferent %wise to mine:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=coachstats&coach=36333&division=10

But it's not like there is no variety in the blackbox:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=blackbox

All the races are represented there and let's face it I'm pretty sure there will be a bias of races in ranked, just of a different kind.

mrkevin says it's hard to build a "weak" team and I can see his point. But I'd query his definition of "weak". For me the really weak teams are the ones that get bashed AND find it hard to win.

As long as you're winning you should have a reasonably healthy FF and that means decent winnings, which you can use to replace lost players. And because there is automatic shceduling you will automatically get assigned more appropriate opposition if you got smashed the previous match.

And if the worst comes to the worst, it's not that difficult to start a new team. Although I think part of the challenge of the blackbox for lower AV teams is adapting your tactics so that you can win, survive and, hopefully, thrive.

A valid point is that weaker AV teams find it hard to keep going at higher TR, as the distribution of teams gets worse and the bashers get more deadly.

My first blackbox team was woodies and they started really well but eventually got beaten down and beaten out of shape:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=development&team_id=525780

But playing them has taught me a lot of lessons about how to manage teams in the blackbox. And now that I have more teams, my woodies get more even matchups (previously I only had my woodies in the box and the match up swings were bigger). Athough it has also meant I hardly play them since they are out of shape and don't get scheduled much ;-).

And of course there are examples of sucessfully built "weak" teams </me looks enviously at>:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=view&team_id=507804

but the road is not without pitfalls:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=development&team_id=507804

Another thing you have to consider when you talk about "weak" races in the box is:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=blackbox

that the differential between Average BWR for different races is at most 3.74 (at time of posting). Yet Circularlogic's BWR is 172.56 (at posting). So even if he was playing exclusively the best race compared to a coach playing the worst race the average BWR advantage he'd get would take him to a BWR of 153.74.

So you could argue that his superior coaching affords him a wopping BWR swing of 18.82. Over 5 times more than the biggest advantage you get from having the better roster.

Perhaps we should focus less about what teams we get and more about how we should play against them ;-).