Boston Flowers

Having finally rolled a very good team the Boston Flowers were spoiled for choice for our Charge. Our best pitcher, Rosemary Penguin took an early lead due to holding the incredible feat of being undefeated all the way to the Midsea-

FEEDBACK DETECTED

PEYTON DRYSDALE AND SQUID BROOM WERE SWITCHED IN THE FEEDBACK.

A new challenger arrived from the Yellowstone Magic. Squid Broom was a beloved player by fans since their hatching due to their name. Squid Broom’s personality is as straightforward as you can get. Please imagine a squid. Please imagine a broom. There you go, that’s Squid Broom.

FEEDBACK DETECTED

SQUID BROOM AND LUCIUS PRINCE WERE SWITCHED IN THE FEEDBACK.

Oh. They got Feedbacked again and are on the Fridays now… except that’s not true. Owing to a “Feature,” certain weather-induced player moves un-happened. Squid Broom was still on the Boston Flowers roster and available for Charging even though their player page listed them on the Hawai’i Fridays. 

The Flowers chose to lean into the opportunity to commit a data crime and charged Squid Broom, or more accurately the Fridays charged Squid Broom in addition to their chosen charge Moth Frosting. 

The Flowers now only have two static players, and the Fridays have four and no one has any idea what that’ll mean for the future. Data Crimes!

Breckenridge Jazz Hands

For the third Circuit in a row, the Jazz Hands had terrible pitching and not-good-enough batting. In the first week, we quickly fell to the bottom of the standings, barely above our long term rivals, the (contemptible) Moist Talkers. We spent the week excited for the Fiesta, and voted leadoff hitter Zee Phantom our party host.

In the Fiesta, we partied a lot Game 1, lost Game 2, and broke Blaseball in Game 3. Squid Psst cemented their status as a Jazz Hands legend by pitching two games simultaneously, getting Night Shifted in one, and Frozen in the other. We split Game 3 with the Pies to end our 3 game series tied 2-2, and somehow “advanced” the next round, only to see it cancelled due to noise complaints.

Like many teams, we choose to host a Sunday Mixer, which accidentally morphed into a Formal. The Divinity boost supercharged our Lineup of inconsistent Home Run hitters, propelling us to a slightly less terrible performance in Week 2. We somehow managed to win two Bloods in the midweek Blood Jam session, gaining Fire blood for “ace” pitcher Lily Cole, and Electric blood for Squid’s Night Shift replacement Troy Bowman. Unfortunately, we never got a shot at the Title Belt, and failed to qualify for the Postseason.

Zee Phantom had been an early Charge favourite, but Lily Cole rapidly overtook them in Week 2. Lily gained many fans by taking Game 1 of the Fiesta to extra innings so they could party before throwing the game winning strike out— a Shakespearean performance which reminded us of our beloved Lowe Forbes. Lily’s solid performance in week two and acquisition of Fire blood made them the clear choice to Charge, a decision I’m sure none of us will come to regret.

–deafhobbit

Core Mechanics 

After being presented our team roster for the Circuit, the Mechanics were in a partying mood— after all, being an average team in the strongest division in the League was just the thing to have to make it far in the Midseason Fiesta, or even win it for the promised prize! To top it off, we’d have a lot of chances for partying to make a good run at the second half of the season, so everything was looking great for a successful season. 

Other than missing a chance at getting another Bees Manhattan (the Mechs previously charged a player of the same name last Short Circuit), the first week of regular season play went about as expected, we declared our favourite bad pitcher Zebrina Vincent our Guest of Honour, even got a First Round Bye to start the Fiesta…

What do you mean, the Fiesta got cancelled after the first round? That was not the plan.

Silver lining: the Title Belt still was a fun feature for the Mechs, being holders of one of the two contested belts for way longer than we should’ve been, finally losing it to the San Francisco Lovers after an eventful and confusing 40-day reign. 

The rest of the season was marked by a flurry of Peanuts, with two Allergic and two Yummy reactions happening on our roster. Both yummy reactions happened on Pedro Vixen, an already strong pitcher who ended up almost Expansion Era shaped because of it. After much deliberation, Pedro Vixen was also selected as the team’s Charge target, as they always respected excellence in pitching. Just need to fix our lineup in the next Era, hopefully.

– Nitro (N1tr00#8811 on Discord)

Kansas City Breath Mints

Ball 1-0. Ball 2-0. Ball 3-0. Boat Hamless draws a walk.

In Kansas City, Boat Hamless’ plate appearances were so regular you could set your watch by them. The method by which they achieved this differed depending on who you asked— some argue that a boat has no identifiable strike zone, others that Hamless had some sort of psychic barrier that repelled strikes, and one opposing pitcher claimed “They just, like, stand there. Menacingly.” Whatever the cause, fans agreed that Boat’s incredible walk rate, OBP and league leading OPS (ignoring, as another reporter put it, undead invaders from another universe) merited a Charge into the Microphone, optimistic they’ll return to lead the League in walks again.

But Boat alone didn’t win the Breath Mints our second ring! Tube Rust was second in the League for Wins, Yuri O’Lantern had a phenomenal postseason BA of 0.407 and Liv Blather and Levar Downey used their Monitor-approved Blood to improve their performances. Most daringly of all, Layla Chambers pulled off the rarely seen but highly effective “catch fire in the postseason, get replaced with a better pitcher who pitches a save” manoeuvre. A brief timeline of events, with time given relative to the Material plane:

11:08pm UTC: Layla lets in three runs from the Worms

11:09pm UTC: Three fans comment “i don’t care if we win as long as layla dies”, “layla go in the fire ,” “has anyone actually been incined this season?”

11:10pm UTC: Rogue Umpire incinerated Layla Chambers! 

Kale Torch then led the team to victory, sporting no losses in their incredibly short career. Wherever they are, I hope they’re enjoying a nice retirement party with the Monitor. And I hope the Mints claim another ring in the Next Era!

• Finn

Miami Dale

Season Cinema was one of the better batters on the Dale, holding the team record for homers, sacrifice plays, and-

Wait, this article was supposed to be about our season? Not our Season?

Well, the Miami Dale had something that could certainly be called a season. The Lineup looked promising with bright stars in the form of Season Cinema, William Heat, Lamar Diomira, and Grace Ray. We also had some incredibly good names in the form of Snake Johns, Stone Pretzel, Season Cinema, and William Heat!

Our rotation? Not so much. Norris Manhattan was our only real superstar, but Emma Bark was ruthless despite her 0.4 stars. Which was bad, because we wanted to be good. Or was it good because we wanted to be bad?

Our goals were conflicting, which proved to be our downfall. We scraped past the Midseason Fiesta, couldn’t clutch it in time for the Playoffs, and choked when we got in through Title Belt power.

Now, a keen-eyed reader will notice that the player we Staticked, Adeline Revelry, is not a ‘star.’ They were more of an underwhelming pitcher who was Frozen more often than not.

But the one key trait that put them above all the other contenders (besides their impeccable name) was Blood Jams Vol. I. The wimd blew in our favor and we snatched Electric blood from the Garages in a repeat of history. And it couldn’t have gone to a more appropriately named player.

Despite all the Features, all the losses, and all the Title Belt shenanigans, this is certain to be a circuit the Dale will remember. At least, the ones who were watching will.

CLEAR FLESH CAN’T LOSE MAX VELOCITY DALE!

-Mango (guzmania#4173 on Discord)

New York Millennials

The Gamme 4 Millennials have been a fun bunch to watch; living completely normal lives until a Microphone emerged in the sky and forcing them to play Blaseball, each of them offered something interesting. Irene Fashion, Coyote Stone, Max Quigley, and Calvin Nether had a strong core in our Lineup. Violeta Cantu led the Mills in Triples, Cy Knives and Harold Castillo held their own, and even Cynthia Chalk and Markus Torch would impress with the occasional stolen base and home run.

The pitching staff was mostly solid, with Mordecai Damage sporting a respectable 2.41 ERA. Asher Juice, Dazzy Deng, and Loner Shelley pitched well, and Daniel Darko… was our Guest of Honor!

Loner Shelley would stand out the most for us, however. A deadpan cosmologist getting the first yummy reaction to a peanut since the Discipline Era, even the Shelled .1 deemed them its progeny. A combination of intense fan interest, solid stats all around, and highly sought after Relevancy (a rare feat among Mills), Loner Shelley was our Charge. While we didn’t perform poorly, we managed to stand out, play about average, and have some memorable moments. Whether it was defeating the Crabs in two simultaneous games, almost facing ourselves in the Fiesta, or Irene receiving a Jersey of Invitation to feature cameos of Deceased players from across universes, I’m proud of these players.

–Clip Clipperson

Yellowstone Magic

The final Short Circuit had us more divided than any other Circuit before it— but that wasn’t a bad thing.

 While it looked like we were going to have a singular star player in Squid Broom, them becoming a Flower meant that we had a better chance to see our team as a whole. While we did have players who performed consistently well, there was no longer a singular player on which all of our attention was focused. 

Peyton Drysdale and Isaac Puffins were both fearsome baserunners. Henri Kraal and Kay Pleck could hit the ball good. Slosh Chalk had a funny name and played well. Not only was our team statistically well-rounded but it felt like everyone was being equally appreciated by us adoring fans. Everyone had their favourite. And in the end, 56% of our adoration was poured into Errol Wool, our final Charge. 

Not only was Wool the only of Magic’s Charges to be in the Lineup rather than rotation, but there was also no one reason as to why they got our last burst of support. 

Though Errol was our Guest of Honor, their buffs from partying ended up being undone by the Ruthless onslaught of Snow, leaving them statistically worse than they started. Instead, we were charmed by the irresistible adoration of a player who was popularly perceived as a sheep. Punny cheers were too good to let go. The image of Charging that thick fluffy fleece with electricity evoked images that we couldn’t pass up. For some, it was simply that “Errol Wool” felt really good to say. Our varied reasoning behind charging Wool is a great reflection of how we experienced these last two weeks as a whole. 

This Circuit, it wasn’t all about the numbers. It was also about the love.

Mal (malgic#8522 on Discord)

And a final note – BNN relies on reports from readers like you to fill out articles! If you’d like to contribute something in the future, head on over to our discord!

The post The Last Dance: Short Circuit 3 Uptempo Recap appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

I figured I would give the performance of Yellowstone Magic over the past two eras a look-see and report back with what I’d say is our All-Star Roster. I am happy to report that Magic is… OK! I’m also pleasantly surprised to report that we’ve had more than just one early Discipline Era player represented— Wow!

But first, the rules:

1. Team sizes will be standard. 9 in the Lineup and 5 in the Pitching Rotation. Players cannot be considered Elsewhere or Shelled.
2. The Selection must represent a single season played with that team.
3. The player must have played at least one full season with that team.
4. A player can only be selected once across all 14 slots.
5. No Replicas are allowed.

Without further ado, let’s look at who I’ve picked for my first four Lineup players.

Washer Barajas (S4) — OBP .367, BA .332, 135 H (6 2B, 7 3B, 17 HR)
Bonk Jokes (S12) — OBP .360, BA .299
Francisco Preston (S4) — OBP .380, 21 HR, 21 SB, SLG .618
Bevan Wise (S17) — BA .306, SLG .600, OBP .332

This is almost a carbon copy of Magic’s Lineup for like… thirteen seasons. Unfortunately, Sutton didn’t make the cut— a lack of optimal performance and suffering from anaphylactic shock means that they just couldn’t perform up to snuff. Had great base-stealing though. And I’d like to give a special shoutout to Bevan Wise from Season 24, who only managed to get back onto Lineup permanently after getting ping-ponged around while Magnified about… halfway through a season. They were also the strongest they’d ever been. What a shame.

OK! Moving on.

Tiana Wheeler (S16) — BA .313, 41 2B, 37 HR, BA/RISP .442
James Mora (S20) — BA .340, OBP .357, 300 TB
Ziwa Mueller (S23) — BA .251, RBI 143.30, 8 SH
Jesús Koch (S23) — BA .332, 24 3B, OPS .985

The next set of players looks oddly placed but please bear with me. I want Tiana in front of James to prevent them from stealing if they can’t manage to bring Tiana home, and a Magnified Ziwa comes up after to hit a triple for the yummy 4x Magnified Runs. Ziwa is tragically “not that good.” But what Ziwa does have is a full season of play while Magnified as a Batter on Magic, and that’s literally good enough to make up for the otherwise poor performance. Also, Jesús is just great. They get to hang out with Bevan on the “Triples Hit Career Leaderboard,” and the only reason Bevan couldn’t catch up was that they were pitching for three seasons.

Last but not least…

Oscar Dollie (S13) — .313 BA, 13 3B, 19 HR, .944 OPS

Oscar Dollie is like the fear factor. The guy at the end of a Lineup with a bat that has probably been used to commit a crime. Oscar Dollie has never had a chance to dominate performance charts. Oscar hits for the fences, cannot be stopped when it gets going, and genuinely is probably the most powerful player Magic ever had in the early days. But never was Oscar considered Idol-worthy. Probably because it’s bad form to idolize a demon, but also because of how few plate appearances the last player on a Lineup sees. Oscar is a sleeper hit. Oscar stays at the end because I’d like someone who’s good at cleaning up the bases, and I want someone who can get easily batted in by Washer.

For our pitching Rotation, our choices were far more limited. Easier for the first four, but it’s a bit worrisome when you realize how very little our pitching staff has changed over the seasons.

King Weatherman (S21) — Underhanded, ERA 0.45, -38 HR, 11.30 R, 1.321 WHIP
Cravel Gesundheit (S18) — ERA 3.34, 175 H / 83.1 R, WHIP .821
Inky Rutledge (S17) — ERA 2.45, WHIP .722, 5 SHO, 1.0 HR9
Curry Aliciakeyes (S18) — ERA 1.94. 8 SHO, 241 SO, 21 QS

… OK, yeah, that’s it! That’s all our pitchers. Nothing wrong here.

Curry maintains their 4th Pitcher position, due to the nature of Postseason brackets but I wanted to mention them first. Season 18 was probably their best performance ever. Though the Rotation was whittled down to four, Curry maintained an ERA of 1.94, literally the best they had ever performed. King with Underhanded is a no-brainer, as maintaining such a comically low ERA was mostly due to King’s unbelievable weakness to home runs, which became their greatest strength. Cravel was a late addition to the pitching crew but showed a lot of promise right out of the gate. Considering Magic spent 16 seasons “working on defense and pitching,” having Cravel was a great boost. Then again, it was at the cost of Inky Rutledge, so it really just became a “well, it’s not the worst possible result in the world!” situation.

And God. Inky Rutledge. You’ve got to be joking. We turned Inky Rutledge into an absolute monster. Inky played 20 games with us before ending up on the Shoe Thieves due to Jaylen Hotdogfingers playing Three Card Monte with our Rotation.

ERA of 2.45, with five shutouts, a Perfect Game versus the Millenials, and a WHIP of .722. Inky, if they stayed with us, probably could have carried us past the Postseason. But should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.

So as I was digging through our trove for pitchers we’ve had for a lengthy period of time, and their performance during, I was very sad to learn who we had to rely on. Our fifth pitcher, our “in case of emergencies” pitcher, our “if they get past Curry, we throw caution to the wind” pitcher…

Logan Rodriguez (S4) — 3.69 ERA, 1.283 WHIP, .47 W-L%, Can’t Keep Getting Away With It
Yeong-Ho Garcia (S3) — 3.69 ERA, 1.096 WHIP, .80 W-L%

Mercifully, and I do mean mercifully, our pinch pitcher is Yeong-Ho Garcia. The Original Yeong-Ho, I should clarify. After Alternates passed, Yeong-Ho became basically on-par with the rest of our pitching staff: Kind of bad. The fact that a Season 3 pitcher performed about on-par with Cravel in Season 18 with the height of Magic’s Defensive Power is an indication of how dire that Alternation was. Yeong-Ho Garcia the Original was a competent pitcher with plenty of room to grow, saw a positive WL ratio which was RARE back then for us, and given time would have been Magic’s second Ace. But we don’t live in that fairy tale.

Honestly, I’m just so absurdly thankful I didn’t have to put Logan on this team.

So to figure out if the Yellowstone Magic All-Star Roster is goo, we must ask ourselves: Are the mounds lowered? No? Then yeah, we’re the best damn team in the All-Star League. If they ARE lowered… Well.

At least they’ll have fun.

This article is part of the Dream Team Series, in which our writers look back on the Discipline and Expansion Eras to create the strongest version of our beloved teams. Read the first in the series here. 

The post Panning for Gold: Yellowstone Magic Dream Team appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

[Editor’s Note: This article references Advanced Stats, which some fans may consider Forbidden Knowledge (FK)]

It’s Season 10. Discipline Era. Magic’s out of the running for the Postseason, again. Magic’s competing with Chaotic Good comrade #1, the Hawai’i Fridays, for PARTYTIME speedrun. Again. Unfortunately, they’re a bit late, and instead, it’s a double knockout for the Fridays and Hellmouth Sunbeams. But it’s OK, Magic’s not far behind, as tragedy had befallen them. Earlier that season, beloved slugger Annie Roland was incinerated, Day 39, to be replaced by future fan favorite, Bonk Jokes. Bonk’s pretty good. But they’re not Annie. 

You can’t replace Annie.

Annie Roland was special. It’s Season 7, when Jaylen Hotdogfingers had first Returned, and their Debted pitches led to the incineration of twelve players. Annie Roland is hit-by-pitch and made Unstable. Twice. They played through three Solar Eclipses— five if you count the two half-games where they had been marked Unstable in the first place. Oscar Dollie also took one on the chin but never played while endangered. Annie Roland defies all expectations following Ruby Tuesday and survives Season 7. Drinks some blood along the way, too.

We flash forward back to Season 10, after Annie’s incineration. We mourn the loss of our blood-hungry, ump-defying superstar. Annie Roland was a four-star batter. Annie Roland had hit one hundred and eighteen (118) home runs in the five seasons they played— competing with fellow dinger hitter, Oscar Dollie. Annie Roland’s pregame ritual was molting. Annie Roland’s preferred coffee style was Espresso.

Annie Roland’s blood type was O No.

I would consider that providence, but it wasn’t Annie that made Magic aim for O No Blood. It was a combination of many things. For instance, we knew blood Blessings were remarkable. Electric Blood, Grass Blood, Love Blood— they were all unique ways to interact with the game. We also knew we hadn’t gotten a Blessing (that we actually aimed for) since Season 1, but experts are pretty certain we didn’t even get that one. Yet ultimately, the reason Magic went for O No Blood was that… well…

It’s called ‘O No’ Blood, are you kidding? It’s hilarious!

Sure enough at the end of Season 10, with the Shelled One defeated, the Crabs Ascending, and the Sun exploded, Election time comes around to reveal…

 Blood Transfusion. All of the Yellowstone Magic players now have O No Blood Type!

And we were ecstatic. But what does this mean? At first, our only explanation was that “Players with O No Blood are Good.” And yeah, we could have told you that. But what gives? With that preamble out of the way, it’s time to ask:

What is O No Blood, and how does it make the Yellowstone Magic ‘Good?’

Whatever it does, we can immediately tell the difference with only a cursory glance at our Season 10 and 11 statistics. Yellowstone Magic was the second-worst team in the League in Season 10, second only to Chaotic Good comrade #2, the Charleston Shoe Thieves. Magic has a team-wide Batting Average (BA) of .223. On-Base Percentage (OBP) of .249, just inching ahead of the Fridays (at the bottom of the League). We counted 710 strikeouts— the second highest. The recently cursed Thieves were hitting a .211 BA with 914 Strikeouts. It was stiff competition, but not counting Charleston, we really were the worst.

Season 10 rolls past, Season 11 starts. All of a sudden, Magic’s hitting at .279 BA with a .301 OBP. Big gains. Well, big whoop you might say. Magic partied, didn’t they? Plus, Siphons stole a lot of defense last season, that probably accounts for easier hits. And that’s fair! It’s a fair point of view to take. But there’s a reason why this bump is attributed specifically to O No blood. The actual text of the blood blessing reads:

A player with O No Blood cannot be struck out as long as there are 0 Balls in the count.

As long as there are three goose eggs in the ball count, a Magic player is not done batting. Consecutive ‘strikes’ past the second appear as Foul Balls. So while that batter keeps swinging, they’re not leaving the plate until they ground out or get on-base. But one Ball in the count ruins the ‘streak’, and the player will strike out properly soon after.

O No Blood was (and still is) the foundation for Magic’s offense. It completely changed what Magic wanted in its batters. Normally you’d want some plate discipline so that even if they can’t hit the pitch, they can maybe squeeze out a Walk to first base. This stat is known as a player’s ‘Moxie’, and it’s all about being able to maintain a cool head under pressure. Like, say, when a wild pitch is hurtling towards you just out of the strike zone. A high-Moxie player can keep their calm, and won’t swing. A low-Moxie player will swing with abandon, and most likely strike out swinging at pitches they can’t even hit.

So let’s revisit that jump in batting average and on-base percentage. .223 to .279 boost in BA alone, meaning the team was hitting about 5% better, which is huge in the splort. And as for OBP – We still had some batters with good enough moxie to account for some truly awful pitchers hanging around, leading to a jump from .249 to .301. Sure, we weren’t the best in the League, but jumping halfway up the rankings with one blessing does make a fair argument for it. Sproutella made an excellent paper showing the impact O No Blood had between Seasons 10 and 11 for our worst batters — It is a phenomenal difference. While it is an older piece, it still provides an excellent breakdown explaining how much Magic improved, which you can find here.

Note: Some content in the paper mentions Forbidden Knowledge (FK).

So Magic’s batters got better and more consistent at hitting— and on paper, should the League continue and incinerations, Feedbacks, and Reverbs refresh and change the makeup of each team, Magic would at least be consistently middling despite the lack of super sluggers and powerful bats. It’s a great cushion.

And yet, by the end of Season 11, Magic was still bottom of Mild Low. Just because you have good bats doesn’t mean you’re going to win. It was around now that the general fanbase started realizing that a strong Rotation could make or break a team. With three pitchers who honestly shouldn’t have been pitching, Magic wasn’t able to hold back the other teams’ offense.

Realizing you need good, strong pitchers to make it far in the Postseason was when things started to change for Magic. There wasn’t a way to address pitching yet, but it wouldn’t be long until things changed after the Grand Siesta. As it turns out, there’s a very funny correlation between Magic’s O No Blood and strong pitchers. Or to be more precise, ‘Ruthless’ pitchers. We’ll get to that in a moment though. For now, we continue our story time.

So it’s Season 11. Peace & Prosperity. Magic’s out of the running for the Postseason. Again. Not speedrunning PARTYTIME but we are ambling our way towards it. Again. We reach Day 99 and everyone’s relaxing, and suddenly we’re told that Magic was the Wild Card for the Mild League— The Mild Card, we’ll call it. We play against the Dallas Steaks. Yeong-Ho Garcia takes first pitch, and remarkably, defying all expectations, YHG takes a win off them. Logan Rodriguez plays the second game, with a 9-3 loss more in line with our expectations.

And then Inky Rutledge wins 7-6 in Game 3. Magic advances. It’s now that we realize that Logan’s loss lined up Curry Aliciakeyes, our best pitcher on the team, to play against PolkaDot Patterson, the best pitcher in the League. We spent all season flabbergasted by PolkaDot managing to dismantle O No, though. We had yet to win against them.

We’re down one to nothing, top of the third. A string of surprises soon follows. Eizabeth gets on first, Oscar reaches on fielder’s choice. Washer Barajas goes up to bat, reaches “strike five” with O No, then a Ball. Then another Ball. A natural Foul. A third Ball. Washer Barajas draws a Walk off of PolkaDot Patterson. The only Postseason Walk that Dot has ever given up.

After this, PolkaDot falls apart at the seams. Sutton hits the single, bases loaded. Oscar scores on Francisco’s sacrifice, tying the game. Bevan hits a triple, sending the others home. Bonk bats them in. The top of the third inning ends with Magic ahead. And it doesn’t stop there. By the end of this game, Magic wins 7-3, and proceeds to “sweep” the Moist Talkers through “Mod 10” (Sun 2 / Black Hole) weather shenanigans.

Anyone watching this game soon discovered what exactly O No can do. PolkaDot Patterson is (well, was) an extremely good pitcher, and a lot of that dominant performance is due to a stat called ‘Ruthlessness’. Ruthless pitchers are better at hitting the strike zone, throwing so fast that it makes it easier to strike batters out. They don’t throw Balls, and rarely Walk batters. Against any other team, a highly ruthless pitcher would be a genuine threat. And a ruthless pitcher is a good pitcher. Remember this now. This is where we REALLY get into the thick of it.

How does O No Blood interact with strong pitchers?

When I mentioned an odd correlation between O No batters and strong pitching earlier, I’m referring to a very specific trend through Seasons 12 to 18 that revealed a steady decline in League-wide batting average. With the introduction of Wills, a team’s priority to contend would be to spend those wills infusing and improving their rotation. Some teams had other problems to deal with, other fires to put out, but every nearly-dominant team was seeing Infusions and Transfusions and Foreshadows (if necessary) to bolster their pitching. The League’s pitching got better. Everyone got strong pitchers. And as we know from earlier, a strong pitcher is invariably a ruthless pitcher.

And a ruthless pitcher alone cannot stop Magic.

The only team’s batting to trend positively throughout Seasons 12 to 18 was the Magic. Magic hovered close to or pretty much at the top of the Team BAs. Magic’s base offense was unmatched, until the introduction of its sister bloods, H2O and O Blood, snatched by its Mild Low cellmates, the Canada Moist Talkers and Baltimore Crabs. The “Blood TriO” became three of the most considerable threats in Mild Low, until each of these teams was dismantled through Exchanges, Plunders, and necromancy. However, while Crabs and Talkers saw themselves dip in the standings, Magic hovered near the middle and top of the Mild Low Division anyway. Even after losing five of their batters (which to be fair, arguably helped their offense AND fielding)! Even with Logan Rodriguez on the Lineup, they persevered. Because O No doesn’t require you to be a great batter to prevail. All it needs you to do is have the willpower to keep swinging.

When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

We cannot keep talking about how O No Blood helps bad batters against strong pitchers without mentioning Chorby Short’s opening day. A Season 12, Day 1 Moist Talkers game against PolkaDot Patterson opened up with a 111 Foul Ball streak. With absolutely no plate discipline, Chorby Short hit 113 strikes in a row, without a single Ball pitched from PolkaDot Patterson. Or maybe there were some; Dot is capable of throwing outside of the strike zone every now and then, as we saw back in Season 11. However, Chorby’s unwillingness to stop swinging meant that as long as Chorby at least tried to hit the ball, they would get another try. Two players in particular upheld long Foul streaks before— Chorby and Wyatt Glover were both below average players at best— but this meant an unprecedented amount of Fouls for both of them. They ended up grounding out by the end. But despite grounding out, the threat was obvious; the longer a player can sustain a streak like that, the more opportunities they get to hit the ball and get on base.

Research by Erin (seen below) revealed an equally interesting correlation within Seasons 12 to 14, ESPECIALLY Season 14. Yellowstone Magic’s performance had little to no correlation with any of the pitching stars of other teams. As in, they were just as capable of being nearly shut out by the Dot as they were capable of blowing out the Dot, 14-2, in a Home Game (Season 14, Day 85). But all the same, pitching improved. And still, due to stronger pitchers giving Magic more opportunities to hit the ball, Magic improved as well.

[Author’s Note: I could go on a rant about how small sets of data can be misleading, or should always be taken with a grain of salt, but frankly this article’s already a bit long in the tooth. Someone should write that. ;)]

Just because you’re good at striking out a batter, doesn’t mean you’ll always strike out a batter. And the more time you give them to hit the ball, the more likely they will.

Magic Hit Ball Good.

How has O No Blood changed in Season 19, and what can we expect from Magic going forward?

…To be honest, it kind of hasn’t. People immediately noticing the spike in Balls thrown compared to Strikes in Season 19 might assume, fairly might I add, that this ruins Magic’s offense. And we thought the same thing as well. Without the ability to string together Foul streaks to squeeze off hits, it feels like Magic’s sub-optimal batting stars might finally have met their demise. Can you really expect Logan Rodriguez to continue hitting the League’s BA? Could a Chorby Short style player ever string together Fouls like that ever again?

…I mean, yeah. Probably.

Our initial gut reaction is to presume that because strong pitchers can throw balls again, that means they can strike out Magic batters exclusively, which is acting under the assumption that this change only means they throw Balls more often, and still maintain the difficulty of getting hits off of them. This is not the case. League-wide raw strikeout count dropped considerably between Seasons 18 and 19.

I’ll use the Philly Pies pitchers as a litmus test here: In Season 18, the Philly Pies struck out 1169 batters and had a WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) of .634 teamwide. In addition, Season 18’s best performing pitcher was Elvis Figueroa (also of the Pies), at .522 WHIP, meaning he averaged near enough to one hit or one walk per inning. And that’s a top-performing pitcher.

But then we compare that to Season 19’s Pie pitching performance, and we see a monumental leap in WHIP. Their pitching staff allowed a Walk or Hit each inning about 85% of the time. Their WHIP was .859, a huge difference compared to their .634 last season. Additionally, Elvis had a WHIP of .756. So yes, former star pitchers were in fact giving up more hits and walks, that’s true. And sure, your immediate reaction might be that Magic is ruined since they can’t Foul streak.

But if you make the ball easier to hit… you know Magic also gets to hit those balls, right?

All the same, Magic’s batting average hits a new low of .242 by the end of Season 19. That’s not great. But our main bats are striking out less often than before. Our on-base percentage dips due to the drop in batting average but is buoyed by our batters remembering how to Walk. All in all, we’re still striking out less than most other teams, but now the strongest offenses have caught up with our performance. We’re not a freakish monster that doesn’t know what striking out means. We’re now on par with our Blood brothers, the Moist Talkers and Crabs, and the strongest team in the League, the Pies.

TL;DR: Magic is still managing to hit the ball, we’re just not getting on base as often after the fact. Pitching being scaled down doesn’t hurt us too badly because it ultimately helps us just as much as the rest of the League. Our blood is still pretty damn good, it’s just not busted anymore.

So after all that, how on earth does Magic hit such shocking lows? The drop in batting average, the strikeout count getting bumped up– Who could have done this? I’ll explain:

Why I despise  Magic struggles with Evelton McBlase II (And Bad Batters In General)

Season 18 draws to a close and the Elections begin. I was running representative duty to help summarize the results of the Election for my team, the Yellowstone Magic. I’m pouring over our Will results, utterly thrilled to see our team’s success. Eizabeth Elliott practices their pitching arm and joins King Weatherman, Curry Aliciakeyes, and Cravel Gesundheit on our Rotation. They’re built like Inky Rutledge, lost in Feedback some time ago. Not quite the bones that Melton Telephone had, but a decent pitcher that could only get better. It’s not like Magic needs to work on their offense. With Bevan Wise back, we expected something akin to the season before.

…Except for two small problems.

Wyatt Pothos, star pitcher and not-so-amazing batter, had been exchanged for Logan Rodriguez, who was pulling their weight despite only having two batting stars. OK, fine. Pothos is still decent. And Evelton McBlase II had snuck his way onto the tail end of our Lineup after Roamin’ away from the Firefighters. Pothos got sorted in after Flex fired off, inhabiting a spot on our Lineup between Francisco Preston and Bonk Jokes, two batters who, in the past, have struggled to keep up with the changing meta. McBlase II came in after Bevan Wise, who needed a strong bat to turn his third base squat into a full run. Not a good sign.

We’ve had something similar before. Chorby Short was unreliable at best against decent fielding, and Wyatt Glover was quicksand that killed all momentum whenever they came to bat. Those two were right next to each other, smack dab in the middle of the Lineup. Even with O No, it was safe to say that Magic could never reach its full potential because of that yawning chasm that ate all RBIs (Runs Batted In) that came its way.

We spent many seasons dealing with it. Whether that was rerolling our worst batter three times (which improved Chorby a tad but made Glover worse), Foreshadowing for a consistent batter (worked, but Glover later came back to replace Washer), or just trying to pick up Blessings to reorganize our Lineup (we never could get one until Season 18), it seemed having a bad batter (or two) kill all momentum was due recompense for managing to snag such a powerful Blessing. For five seasons we couldn’t completely shake these Lineup issues, until Redactions happened.

And then we forgot what that was like to have irreparably bad batters; It was so many months ago. And then it reared its ugly head again in the form of Evelton McBlase II.

Season 19. Evelton is the only member of the team to hit triple digit strikeouts. Only member of the team to hit below .200 BA by the end of the season. Only member of the team that did not even reach .200 OBP. Bonk Jokes didn’t do much better at a glance, scraping over a BA of .208 that season, but at least Bonk could Walk. And having them surround Bevan Wise, who was having an average season at best? It meant that the latter half of our Lineup was a graveyard for Runs. Without Evelton McBlase II, Magic’s On-Base Percentage jumps from .265 to .281, on par with the Georgias and Lovers. Without Evelton McBlase II, our Batting Average jumps from .242 to .251, nestled between the Crabs and Tigers.

Without Evelton McBlase II, we’d still be second worst in Mild, but I wouldn’t be cursing this schmuck for making our season even more intolerable to watch.

There is a certain sweet spot for batting stats on the Magic, and Evelton McBlase II completely failed to hit any of them. They were too pathetic (Patheticism being a stat that indicates a natural ‘flinch’ for a batter. Makes you strike out more), didn’t have the Moxie to Walk, didn’t have the ‘Thwackability’ (hitting power, basically) to send the ball flying— They were, in every way, the second-worst tuned batter for Magic (or any team, judging by their performance statistics) we’ve ever seen. There was one player who was worse, but they’re in Mexico City now.

There is bad batting. And then there’s unsalvageable bad batting. And that kind of bad batting can’t be saved by special blood.

O No Blood and the Future of Pitching

But this terrible wound to Magic’s roster was necessary for the good of the League. Just comparing the pitching stats from Season 18 to Season 19 should explain as much. Pitching was reaching critical mass, to a point where the amassment of pitching stars was being referred to as a pitching arms race. Because that’s what it was. You were making unstoppable pitchers in order to take a Championship. You didn’t really need the best bats to take the big win. You just needed a strong Rotation, maybe a slugger or two, and a little bit of luck. With these changes, we’ll hopefully see teams lean more into improving their Lineup over their pitching, but we won’t know for certain until Season 20.

In the meantime, even with our sadly low batting average, Magic’s still doing what Magic does best— not striking out, which is a great baseline to work from. With a strong Mild League as of the end of Season 19, it’s the perfect time for Magic to recuperate, slip some Parties in for its batting, and maybe prioritize some fine-tuning to the roster. Without having the “permission” to Party given to it by O No Blood, Magic was slowly falling behind in Postseason performance despite its great regular seasons. Now that we’re average at best, it’s finally time to declare with utmost certainty:

It’s a rebuilding season.

And we couldn’t be happier.

The post 0 No: Yellowstone Magic’s Miracle Blood in the Expansion Era appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

“As Above, So Below.”

Yellowstone Magic fans see these words as more than a slogan. It’s a mantra, a philosophy, an aesthetic. There’s beauty in balance, in symmetry. Losses follow Wins, good follows bad. What comes up must come down and vice-versa. 

The Magic had a brush with greatness in Season 14. The team placed second in the regular season, made it to the Mild League championship, and had a stellar Election that seemed to set it up for future success. In other words, it got a glimpse of what it’s like Above.

Time for some Below.

Yellowstone finished Season 15 with 53 Wins and 46 Losses, missing the Playoffs. This may seem lackluster in light of the high expectations fans had at the start of the season, but the fact that the team managed a winning record at all is a testament to its resilience in the face of a savage series of events.

A difficult season was almost assured thanks to a brutal schedule. The Magic played 12 games against the titanic Baltimore Crabs and 12 against the mighty Canada Moist Talkers. To be fair, the Magic also had 15 games against the Seattle Garages, whose dismal season made Yellowstone’s look like a walk in the (national) Park. Regardless, scheduling woes would soon be the least of the Magic’s problems.

On Day 2, playing against the Crabs, Yellowstone’s Wyatt Glover caught a flyout hit by the recently-deceased York Silk. 

The Crabs brought Silk back from the dead at the end of Season 14. Necromancy has consequences. Catching Silk’s hit caused Glover to be Observed. By whom? Nobody knows.

After Day 4, Glover vanished from the Magic’s lineup. They had been Redacted. The nature of Redaction is unclear, but Glover is gone, at least for now. It’s the latest development in a fraught career, which has seen Glover change names, be subjected to three failed exploratory surgeries, change positions, change teams, learn to eat fire, become a Credit to the Team, get sent to the Shadows, and return for just four games before Redaction.

There was some good news— Yellowstone batters Eizabeth Elliot and Oscar Dollie both returned after long trips Elsewhere. They would be replaced by Francisco Preston, one of the strongest batters in the Magic’s lineup, who was swept away during game 29. Preston would return on Day 93.

In Game 30, playing the Crabs again, Magic fan-favorite Chorby Short became Observed after catching a ground out from Silk. In game 33 Short hit a two-run homer before they, too, were Redacted.

Things calmed down a bit in the Midseason. More Yellowstone players fell under Observation but managed to avoid Redaction. Fans funded a whopping three improvements to the Stadium. A Grind Rail is the magnificent centerpiece of the new Yellowstone National Skatepark within Yellowstone National Ballpark within Yellowstone National Ballpark. The Park has more birds now, and the team was one of many around the League to build a Secret Base.

This, too, would have consequences.

Yellowstone Magic batter Kurt Crueller became Observed during game 75. On Day 78, while playing at home against the Pies, Crueller entered the Magic’s Secret Base. They didn’t come out. At first, it appeared they had been redacted, but moments later Crueller emerged from another Secret Base in Charleston’s Choux Stadium. Crueller had a new Modification — Attractor. Its exact properties are unknown, but it appears that Crueller can emerge from the Secret Base in any Stadium. If Crueller scores, they will join the Lineup of whatever team they scored it for.

The Charleston Shoe Thieves did not score a Run, and Crueller vanished again. They have not been seen since.

To make matters worse for the Magic, it appears building Stadium Renovations attracts the attention of hungry Consumers. Late in the season, the Consumers Attacked the Magic’s Eizabeth Elliot and Tiana Wheeler, causing significant stat drains.

The team battered and depleted, Magic fans attempted to regain some lost ground during the Election, with mixed success. The Infuse Blessing has made Inky Rutelidge a significantly better pitcher. The Afterparty Blessing gives the team a shot at much-needed stat boosts in Season 16, and the Dirty Bulk Blessing has turned Tiana Wheeler into a more formidable batter.

However, an attempt to rescue Chorby Short was unsuccessful. Fans tried to use the Plunder blessing to steal Short back from wherever Redacted players go. This did not work. Short instead gained the Unstable mod — making them more likely to be Incinerated. They did not return to Yellowstone’s roster. The Modification was accompanied by the following message:

WARNING
EXTRAPLANAR ACTIVITY
BOOKS COOKED
INSTABILITY DETECTED

Yellowstone enters Season 16 with an uncertain future. If it can recover its Redacted players it could reclaim its place near the top of the standings— but for now, that seems unlikely. The team will have to persevere Below for a while, waiting until the inevitable moment when it gets another chance to rise Above.

The post Back Below: Yellowstone Magic Season 15 Recap appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

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.

The post BNN Was Wrong: Magic Season 14 Recap appeared first on Blaseball News Network.