BNN Was Wrong: Magic Season 14 Recap

Author: Jake Anderson

It’s time for a reckoning, BNN.

The staff of this “illustrious” “news” “source” ranked the Yellowstone Magic a lowly 17th in its Season 14 Power Rankings— down two spots from the season prior. This… was wrong. The team launched a propaganda campaign to tell the world as much, then went on to prove it.

Yellowstone finished second in the regular season with a nicely symmetrical record of 63-36. A couple gifts from Sun 2 brought the Magic’s total Win count to 65. The team finally fell to the Moist Talkers after a nail-biting 3-2 Mild League Championship Series. How’s that for a power ranking?

However, a forgiving person could find reasons to cut BNN some slack. After all, the Magic was easy to underestimate. The team has been resoundingly mediocre for most of the ILB’s history. Its lineup has no superstar sluggers. Yellowstone ended Season 13 with a modest 55-44 record and no dramatic blessings to show for it.

But ask Yellowstone fans and they’ll tell you the team’s newfound dominance was inevitable. 

The Magic does not rely on secret weapons. The Magic does not rely on silver bullets. The Magic is moss— simply, slowly and unstoppably consuming everything in its path. Nobody is underestimating Yellowstone anymore. Here’s how the team did it.

Slow and Steady

When it’s time to party, the Magic parties hard. Five Yellowstone players saw their stats boosted in the waning days of Season 13: Bevan Wise, James Mora (twice), Eizabeth Elliot, Wyatt Glover, and King Weatherman.

Glover would not be around long to enjoy their new skills. The Foreshadow will in the postseason Election saw them sent to the Shadows in exchange for Tiana Wheeler, a significantly better batter. The Magic’s second Will infused Chorby Short with new power. 

Individually, none of these changes were earthshaking. Together, and when added to similar improvements from Season 12, they made all the difference. The Magic had eliminated its biggest weaknesses and shored up its strengths, becoming one of the most consistent teams in Blaseball. While there are few superstars in Yellowstone, there are also no terrible players. The batters don’t score a ton of home runs but they can get on base— and that’s enough to win blaseball games.

In Their Blood

This article has gone six whole paragraphs without excoriating BNN. Let’s fix that. The network was forced to eat crow in its Midseason power rankings update and acknowledge the truth: Magic Goo. Yet some of BNN’s most astute splortscasters were baffled by one apparent anomaly. Yellowstone had a great record against great teams. Against weaker teams, its performance looked a little shakier. This was not a coincidence. The Magic’s batters are giant-slayers. It’s in the team’s blood.

A Season 10 Blessing gave the team the 0 No modification. Yellowstone’s batters cannot be struck out while there are 0 balls in the count. Until the first ball has been thrown, anything that would otherwise count as a third strike is instead logged as a foul ball.

This is the secret to the Magic’s success against great teams. The best, most accurate pitchers rarely throw balls — which means they give Yellowstone batters plenty of extra chances to get on base. This trait drew league-wide attention in Season 12 when Chorby Short recorded 2,345 foul balls— almost 8 times more than the next-highest batter in the league— but 0 No blood is quietly responsible for many less dramatic (and more useful) plays for The Magic.

Washed Away

Yellowstone’s regular season was fairly uneventful — unless winning loads of games counts as an event. The team saw no incinerations or Feedback swaps, and while reports of attacks by voracious consumers had fans worried, Yellowstone was spared. The community funded the construction of a Heat Magnet and Solar Panels at Yellowstone National (Ball)Park, neither of which has been used yet. Twice, Flooding swept away batter Oscar Dollie for a couple of extended trips Elsewhere, but it seemed as if the Magic might escape the season with no permanent scarring.

This was not to last. In Game 3 of the Mild League Championship Series, Eizabeth Elliot— a lynchpin of the team’s defense — was swept Elsewhere, joining Dollie. Neither has returned. Two games later, the Consumers finally struck, attacking veteran Yellowstone batter Washer Barajas and draining more than three stars worth of their skills.

Where’s BNN?

Despite these setbacks, the Magic seems poised for another strong run. Not content with proving BNN wrong for just one season, the team set itself up for success with one of the rarest feats in Blaseball— an election that went mostly according to plan.

Magic fans put about 440,000 votes toward the Precognition Blessing— the largest single-Blessing vote total from any team in the history of the splort. It paid off, improving the stars of Short, Wheeler, and Kurt Crueller. The Nut Button blessing eliminated the team’s persistent problem with peanut allergies. Short also got the Homebody modification that will see them playing better in Yellowstone and worse on the road.

Even an unwanted Will worked in the team’s favor. The Foreshadow Will sent Barajas to the shadows to recover from their injuries— which had a 0% chance of happening. Wyatt Glover has returned. 

It’s anyone’s guess how The Magic will perform next season, but the team has proven it deserves a much higher spot in the next power rankings. Or not. Go ahead BNN, rank Yellowstone 19th next season. The Magic might just go ahead and win the Internet League Championship out of spite.