ranked human team

[Oly1987]

This is my ranked human team

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=660627

Was doing reasonably well with them but recently hit a bit of a bad streak losing my last 6 games with them. They are hovering around the TV1900/2000 and I know this isnt the optimal TV for humans and I'm wondering what to do with them. I can suck it up, be a man and keep the TV and hope I can start to rack up some wins again or I can retire half my team and buy rookies and go for the more optimal human range. Thoughts and suggestions? On both what I should do with the team and the general team build and thoughts on skills

[Oly1987]

well in the end i did win a game and i was feeling good..... then Punk77 challenged me with his CD's which were 200k TV better than me and i foolishly accepted. 2 cpombers and lots of mighty blow and DP mean i ended up retiring my rookie catcher, and a rookie lino, 3 skill lino and nice 3skill blitzer (+MA,+AG,guard) got killed, also my star player (the thrower) is missing the next game. I took helmut and a babe and he injured the hell out of me and forced me to play helmut turn 8, fouled a lot and just seemed generally unsporting with fouls that didnt really need to be done. Hey ho back to the drawing board just now have to rebuild my team

[van der vaart]

Ah thats Blood Bowl i guess. My first game on fumble with my slann saw me have 3 players left on the pitch, i suffered 8 casualties, 3 which were stat breaks or MNG. Ah well!

[mattgslater]

Wanna play a match? I'll know more after I've played against you. What kind of opposition mix have you been struggling with? I have 1740 High Elves and Orcs which are stuck IG (we pick up in 14 hours) but will probably be in the same range after the match is over.

I'll spec some of your games in the meantime, see if I can pick anything up.

They changed the FUMBBL website around, and I haven't figured out how to look up teams by stats like I used to (I'm sure there's a way). But if you can, maybe find the top [R] Humans in W/L or in raw wins (either works) and look over maybe the top 15. Here's how to get a good sense of a team and what to draw from it:

1) Hit "Show Matches", then make sure the team's played about 10 or 12 matches in LRB6. You have to go into a match report to see the date. If you're not sure, replay and see which client it's in. If the team came from LRB4, you need to make sure it's been around long enough to start adapting.

2) Look at the roster and match list and get a sense of what it is and what it does. Is the team selective with its opposition, or does it take all comers? Do they have problems with one kind of opposition or another? Are the Blitzers specialists, or do they all take the same skills? Did the team get derailed by statbumps? What's their philosophy on Catchers? How many players? If the team runs low on men or positionals, but keeps a big Treasury, that would suggest it's deliberate.

3) Compare everything you see to your own instincts: your gut feeling has a proper place in this evaluation. You're trying to improve your own skills, and you don't want to pattern yourself after a coach whose thought patterns don't resemble your own.

4) Repeat this process for like a dozen teams. See if there's any pattern of success, or if any of them seem to be doing what you're doing. Pick three teams, for whatever reason you pick them for, and set to watching replays.

For each of your three selected teams:
1) Watch 6-12 replays. You may have to watch a few replays against similar teams to get a sense of how a coach plays a particular type of opponent. Focus on successes, but watch some losses too. See if the losses follow a pattern.

2) Look at the coach's profile. How much does he play? What league does he mostly play with? What other teams does he play? What's his CR? W/T/L and W%?

Blocks for/against? This can be skewed by race @ opposition (see BattleLore), but usually will tell you if a coach blocks a lot (PurpleChest) or not (Joemanji). That doesn't tell you if he's any good or not, but it does tell you a lot about how he plays in close games.

Comps tell a story, too. Coaches who Comp a lot more than 1.25x/match either play teams with Pass and 2+ passing options, or are big risk-takers (really, that's and/or). Comps per match and for/against can easily be skewed by team race, but good coaches throw few ints if any, and usually have a lower passing:comp than their opposition.

Fouls, don't forget fouls. Good coaches give up fewer fouls than bad ones do, but differential is not informative, because fouling in favor is more indicative of style than ability (much like blocks). Fouls per game tells you if he likes to foul a lot....

[mattgslater]

For one thing, of the last 10 coaches, you've played only three with a CR in the 140s or low 150s (mediocre) and three in the high 150s or low 160s (good), three coaches with CR in the mid-to-high 160s (excellent), plus the mighty Malmir, one of the best coaches in the world. So a lousy record is not something to be too concerned about.

Your team looks good.

Your risk management is fine. Your sense of space and anticipation aren't all that hot, in that you often jump the gun with the ball. That's your biggest bugaboo from what I can tell. I understand your concern with AG3, but maybe you should try to play keep-away a bit more, include more of an option for sudden reverses, less effort on manning up and more on controlling the horizontal game. I had the same problem; still do, really, but the CoP is an attempt to resolve it, and I'm making progress.

In the game against the Necromantics, Pray to the Moon, you really let yourself get partitioned badly. He didn't have to protect the ball, because in response to getting outbashed you started bashing harder, which is seldom the answer. The rain didn't help your cause.

Malmir is just great, but you didn't exercise nearly enough ball security against I Say You Fellows. In particular, in the "fourth quarter" with the score down 0-2, you stepped your Blitzer with the ball into blitzing range. You also gave up too many blocks for an AV8 team facing comparable bash at greater mobility. You also focused too much on the sideline game: you're not going to beat Malmir's DE by playing for surfs, and surfs are a lot more fun/scary than beneficial.

Hope that helps.

[RandomOracle]

They changed the FUMBBL website around, and I haven't figured out how to look up teams by stats like I used to (I'm sure there's a way).

Try this link: http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=teams

[mattgslater]

Thanks, RO!

How would I have found this, had I got to it from the home page?

[koadah]

Bah! Retire the whole team and start again in the ox.

http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/b ... sprintId=8

[Oly1987]

wow only just got on here after a few days away and im delighted that youve decided to lend a hand matt! i understand you to be a great coach so the advice youve given me is much appreciated i will have that game with you at some point just a case of setting up a time and day (work withstanding). I just need someone to sit me down and give me a pro lesson on how to play. ive got the basics down and played a few very good coaches at TT tournies and on fumbbl and feel that from most of them i have learned something. In response to the game against malmir i must admit i wasnt playing in all seriousness and decided to make it a surfing war which although didnt help was great fun and tought me a lot about that aspect of the game. Ive started playing around with other teams to see how i far as well as plugging away with the humans and seeing if maybe another team may suit my style of play. And as to the CR of my opponents i like to try and challenge myself by playing people that are better than me as i go by the philosophy of that you dont get better by beating people that are worse than you and even if you lose to somene better than you you'll learn something from it

[mattgslater]

I'm actually merely above average. My understanding of the game is pretty solid, but my instincts are a tad aggressive.

You do get better by beating people who are worse than you, by the way, so long as they're at least reasonably good. A competent coach can keep you on your game, and a variety of coaches can show you a variety of tendencies and coaching concepts. Even a pushover can help you out by giving you practice doing what you do when it's working. The key is playing a mix of skill levels, and especially playing some games against coaches who are just a bit better than you (which is what you're doing).