SEASON 11 IS FINISHED.

(yeah, it has been for a while).

Hey there everybody, Benson “Nutty” Newton here with the traditional full Season recap! I hope you’re ready to buckle in and read about some of the most exciting happenings of our beloved Season 11. I know, I know, it’s been a good long while since the Season actually ended. But! I was taking some much needed time off after so long on the road.
Without any further ado, let’s jump into the Season of Peace and Prosperity.

Living up to the title it was given, Season 11 was largely an uneventful one. After all, there was no longer a majorly dominant team to content with and we lost all of our beloved weather forecasts (save two new ones). No Incineration, no Peanuts, no ominous Birds, no Feedback Frenzy. Of course, there were still plenty of games to be played, and play the games our beloved Teams did. It quickly became apparent, however, that things were not all the same as they usually were.

Oh boy, where do I even start with this one.

In the Season 10 Internet Series (Baltimore Crabs v. Charleston Shoe Thieves), Tot Fox of the now ascended Crabs hit a home run that sent their team over 10 total Runs scores, causing something… unique to happen.

THE CRABS ACCUMULATE 10

THE SUN COLLAPSES

THE MOON IS SWALLOWED

THE BLACK HOLE FORMS

SUN 2 RISES

The Crabs collect 10! The Black Hole swallows the Runs and a Shoe Thieves Win.

– Season 10 Internet Series, Game 3 Game Log Messages

Of course, none of us had any idea what this would mean! These intimidating messages were followed by the fans base of Blaseball voting to add Black Holes to the game (once again showing that they desire nothing more than Consequences™. Through the rise of Sun 2, the death of the Sun (1?) and the Moon

Alright, so how do they work.

We got a short preview of how Sun 2 and Black Hole weather would effect our beloved Splort in the Season 10 Finals. But here’s a bit more of an explanation, to the best of my poor Intern-in-Chief ability.

Well, first here’s a tweet about it from the Bosses.

It seems that collecting 10 runs in Sun 2 weather will cause the Sun to smile, adding a win for your team.

If we're to extrapolate Postseason 10 events, getting 10 runs during Black Hole weather will subtract a win from your opponent. pic.twitter.com/Q1H3SbJrJY

— BLASEBALL NEWS NETWORK™ (B.E.A.N.) (@BlaseballNews) October 19, 2020

If your favorite Team hit 10 runs under Sun 2, Sun 2 would take away 10 of those runs and gift your Team a Win. That’s right, a whole win. However, this could easily put the Team who was just gifted this win in position to lose the current game they were in, because they suddenly lost 10 runs!

Similarly, in Black Hole weather, at 10 runs, the Black Hole would swallow both a win from your opponent and your 10 runs.

(It should be noted that both of these effects took away exactly 10 runs. If a team went over 10 [going from 9 to 11 off of a two run home run, for example], they would have points left over equal to whatever amount over 10 they reached off of one play.)

Suddenly, one of the seeming cardinal rules of Blaseball, that every team would end up with a Win-Loss record that totaled 99 at the end of the Season, was completely broken. Poor SIBR (the slatistians and record keepers of all things numbers and beyond for Blaseball) lost their minds as all of their tools imploded. Wins Per Game became a relevant stat. Fans around the League were continually very confused as to how it worked… and well. Let’s take a look at the final standings. I’ll even blow it up nice and large for you.

As you can see here… everything is all over the place.

The Moist Talkers and Tigers have have 104 combined Wins and Losses. The Sunbeams have 107. The Unlimited Tacos have ONE HUNDRED & FOURTEEN.

The poor Tokyo Lift, the new Team to the League, finished with just 89 Wins and Losses. Sad.

Thanks to Sun 2 and Black Hole weather existing, the Season 11 Postseason was sure to be like no other.

With the new meaning brought to Wins and Losses by the new weather, the “Best of Five Games” format that had ruled the Postseason until now (which had both Teams play between three and five games, until one Team had won a majority of the potential five) no longer was going to cut it.

So! We changed to First to Three! Meaning: The first Team with three Wins at the end of a game will win the series vs. their opponent, as long as both teams aren’t tied at three Wins! That’s simple, right?

We could talk about a wide range of things that went on in this Postseason (it was surely a wild one), such as the astounding run of the Yellowstone Magic making their way from surprise Mild League Wild Card Round winners to facing off against the Seattle Garages in the Mild League Championship (congrats!) but I want to focus in on the truly unique journey of the eventual champions, the Hellmouth Sunbeams.

Let’s take another look at the end of Season standings again, shall we?

Right at the top of the Wild Low (and the entire League) sit the Sunbeams, with a mighty 68 wins. This let them bypass the Wild Card round and set them up against the 4th seed Houston Spies for the Division Series.

Thanks to the assistance of Black Hole and Sun 2 Weather, the Beams swept the Spies in only 2 Games, with a final record of 3-(-1), setting the record for the first Playoff series to end with negative Wins for a team.

In the Championship Series, the Sunbeams faced off against the Hades Tigers, a match up so familiar that fans of both teams call them the TigerBeams. With Black Hole and Sun 2 playing their wild tricks (mainly Black Hole,) the Sunbeams ended the First to Three series with five wins to the Tiger’s three. Also, it took them six games instead of the traditional five game max to reach this point. While fans of Blaseball feared an infinite loop of the Tigers and Sunbeams playing each other (and while some actively cheered for and welcomed the possibility), the Sunbeams manged to get business done when it counted and moved on to the Finals.

Their first Finals appearance, at that!

Well, after those two matches, the Finals were a bit more uneventful. Facing off against the Seattle Garages, who were making their first appearance in the finals since being swept by the Baltimore Crabs in Season 6, the Sunbeams took care of business, defeating their opponents… and becoming first time ILB Champions! Of course, this victory came by the way of continually taking a win away from the Garages thanks to Black Hole weather and then losing the game as a result… leaving the Series the same as it was before the game. Luckily, in the bottom of the 9th in the final Game, with 9 Runs on the board, the Sunbeams hit into a Double Play, ending the game with a Win and taking the Championship home!

Luckily, they didn’t even have to fight a Peanut.

While there is probably a whole article that could be written about it, I’ll keep it brief. In so many ways, the Sunbeam’s championship is about a lot more than just the Sunbeams. It’s about the whole Wild Low, a division that’s defining trait in it’s Season 6 founding was that it had the five worst teams of Season 5 in it. Over Seasons 6 to 11, the Wild Low Division has slowly transitioned to from the laughing stock of Blaseball to a stable of Teams that are able to threaten a win in any game. Working together with other Teams and the fanbase as a whole to get the Enhanced Party Time Decree passed helped. So did the Divisions plan to get all of the entire-Division buffing Blessings. And now, one of them has finally made it to the top! All after the Sunbeams finished Season 10 with their worst record ever as a Team: 33-66.

It is in these small stories (and the big ones, like when we killed the Peanut) that make Blaseball so great.

There’s much, much more to discuss about the Election and what has actually happened since the final plays of the Season 11 Finals, but that’s for another time.

Thanks for checking our the good ole’ Season 11 Recap. Done not at all on time, but at least it’s here!

Remember:

the INTERN-INTERIM commissioner is doing a great job.

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