Riff-Raff’s Killer Guide for Blood Games

Posted: Fri May 23, 2025 9:40 pm

I love Blood Games, especially the slow (28-day turnaround) variety. Nothing quite encapsulates the spirit of what gladiatorial games are all about like the Winner-Take-All aspect of Blood Games. I highly encourage you to try it at least once. There’s not a better ROI, especially when you get 10 months of play for just $59, with the possibility of an immortal DYO as your reward. But 2 days at a Face is fun, too, and the Overnight 1-strategy version tends to really level the playing field even against the top managers.

Besides, where else can you match wits and cross swords with some of the game’s top managers, all at the same time? You’ll find at least some of The Muffin Man (TMM), Howlin Wolf, Doc Steele, Managerr, Mannequin, One Armed Bandit (OAB), Floyd, DMobster, Anarchist, Chief Illiniwek, The Dark One (TDO), Papaiz, Mr. Mojo, Dr. Feelgood, Neon Necromancer, Boss Rat, Assurnasirbanipal, Hombre, Baron Bentsword, Dameon Darkheart, Bubbaganoosh, JE, Darque, Tripwire, Grand Wizard, Khorvinus and many others playing. Prove your mettle! Run the gantlet.

Blood Games is by far both the most exciting and most frustrating of the Duelmasters mini-tourneys. Me, myself personally, I’ve gone as bad as 9-24-5 and as good as 54-26-17 (overall 599-507-177 in 21 contests with 9 graduates and 7 styles). I’ve had all my warriors killed well before turn 10, and had 7 of the 10 survive until the end. This is a feature, not a bug, of Blood Games. A hot start doesn’t guarantee success, and a bad beginning doesn’t doom your chances. The reason? Finishing in the top 3 is all that matters. Everyone else gets retired, never to be heard from again, whether they are alive or dead.

The top 3 graduates are decided by 1) Most Kills; then 2) Wins as the first tie-breaker ; 3) Recognition as the next tie breaker, and finally 4) (virtual) Coin Toss. And yes, I’ve seen the #3 graduate decided by the virtual coin flip.

There is one “little” wrinkle, of course. Only one warrior of any given style can graduate. So, if you have the #2 warrior, but the #1 warrior is the same style, only #1 gets out. It sucks, I know, but there’s no crying in Blood Games. Next time, kill that guy when you have the chance. How do you do that? Well, let's talk about that.

The goal of this article is to introduce basic concepts and designs, and to help get you competitive quickly without the discouraging experience of getting shut out on wins and kills, and eliminated quickly. The actual exercise of designing, running, and graduating a successful Blood Games warrior is left as an exercise for the reader.

Let’s start with the most basic fact of Blood Games : Only kills matter. In order to kill, you have to win. In order to graduate, you have to (at the very least) survive until round 10. Fact! Your 0-1-0-1 warrior counts the same as your 7-3-3 guy who finished 4th.

Let’s start with design: everyone gets 10 Design-Your-Own (also known as DYO) warriors, once of each style; the “average” warrior in Blood Games is a tourney godling. In addition, half of the warriors are dead by the end of Round 5. Remember that. Blood Games is not the place for oddball designs, at least not until you’ve got some successful graduates under your belt. There are many different ways to skin this cat but never forget the First Rule of Blood Games : You can’t kill if you don’t win. So don’t get too crazy with your designs or strategy choices, especially on your first few teams.

TO ENTER: Email csr@reality.com your arena choice (Overnight, In Person or Slow), Team Name, Warrior Names and 1 design for each style.

YOU RECEIVE (eventually): An email with Overviews for your warriors from RSI.

Send in strategy sheets on time, and you're good to go!

Some historically successful builds :

17-3-3-21-21-8-11 is a great start for any offensive style. 17/3 guarantees Good damage and has a non-zero chance at Great. That’s huge.

17-3-3-21-21-12-7 is a historically successful build often used for SL and BA. OAB’s article “Blood on the Purple Robe” primer introduces his warrior Sushi Slinger, who pioneered this design.

17-5-3-21-21-4-13 or (for the more risk averse) 17-7-3-21-21-4-11 works well for LU, and some hybrid styles.

17-18-3-11-21-3-11 works well for any defensive style, or hybrid. CN 16 WT 13 if you prefer to be well-suited to LO.

21-14-3-11-21-3-11 WS is an interesting variant if you’re trying to take advantage of luck stats and max the odds for your warrior bonuses.

17-16-3-3-21-3-21 (aka “The Jalon”) is the AB GOAT. If you can get this design out, you’ve got a superior Freshman bust, especially if your favs end up something like FI MOD/MOD Slash Defense learn. The competition here is fierce; most Blood Games see an AB in the top 3, and often several ABs in the top 5-10 warriors.

9-6-3-21-21-3-21 AB is a fun, more stylish, version. Also, far less successful (at least so far) in the long run. This guy wins the style points contest, if that’s your thing.

At the end of this article, I’ll post my graduates’ starting stats. I had a steep learning curve, with a lot of poor showings.

Bonuses and Physical Blessing like Ambi or Great Damage : Are nice, and certainly more is better. But the most important factors (favorite weapon, rhythm and tactics as well as the elusive "knack") are unknown and unknowable until your warriors fight in the arena; I rarely re-roll my teams anymore. As previously stated, you can minimize your need for lucky rolls with smart design choices.

Strategy : Not so different from the arena. 10-10 or similar for Offensives; Parry tactic min 1 tends to damp down your opponent's critical attacks. If it works in a tourney, it will probably work in Blood Games, at least for winning, but it’s not just about winning. You need to maximize your chances for killing. Normally, maximizing your chances for killing actually lower your chances for winning, at least consistently over 10 turns.

The “normal” way to improve your chances to kill are 1) Bigger weapons 2) Higher KD and 3) Attacking vitals. And that is still true, of course. In a “normal” tourney, kills can be an effective tool for smoothing your path to a deep run. After all, (as Kharadmon is fond of saying) if you kill your opponent, you don’t have to beat them again later.

Kill Desire is probably less than important in Blood Games than you’d expect. OAB states he’s gotten graduates out running KD of 6, 7, 8 and 9 and my experience is similar. “Kill Desire” is something of a misnomer; a better description would probably be “Aggressiveness”. You can usually get your warrior to attack more simply by raising their Kill Desire; this is a fairly straight-forward effect. The higher the Kill Desire, the more aggressive your warrior will be, and the less they will be concerned with their own defense. Whether or not your warrior is a killer, though, is largely out of your control. Simply pushing your warrior to a 10 KD won’t automatically make every warrior bloodthirsty. Some warriors like to kill; some warriors like to die. It seems to be a “hidden stat” similar to chattiness. It’s out of your control, invisible on the overview and impossible to discover until you see your warrior in action. And super important. Nothing is more frustrating than your warrior showing mercy to a fallen foe. Nothing is further from your control on the Blood Games sands.

Weapon selection : Don’t get crazy. SC off-hand BA on a TP may look sexy on the strategy sheet, but any weakness will be exploited by your opponent and could likely lead to an untimely death; the margin between victory and death is razor thin. Slashing weapons are superior killing weapons to Lunging weapons, which trump Bashing weapons. WF and MS are right out! I personally don’t worry about trying to find a warrior’s “favorites” (weapon or rhythm). There’s just not enough time. Run with the “best” possible rhythm, and weapon and hope for the best.

NOTE: Mannequin’s strategy of “First you knock them down, then you kill them” works well when paired with a lunging weapon. As I said, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Armor: ALE/L has saved many a warrior’s life. APA/F covers up a lot of design and strategy flaws. Anywhere in the middle is fine, if your warrior has the stats to carry it.

Challenges / Avoids : The only challenges allowed are Blood Feuds. The only Avoids you have are when you’re being Bloodfeuded. Bloodfeuds are processed based on your Recognition Points, so if you have the most recognition points in the arena you get the first shot at Bloodfeuding, and your Blood Feud can only be frustrated by a successful avoid. This is more important the later in the tournament you go.

This is, of course, a double-edged sword. I once had a 6-0-3 SL who had an opportunity to Blood Feud a naked Basher. I felt like this was my best opportunity for a 4th kill (which normally will get you in the top 3, or close) so I went for it. I ended up a 6-1-3-1 (1 loss, 1 death). *Shakes fist at Mannequin* But a 3 Kill SL usually doesn’t graduate, anyway. Dead ones definitely don’t advance. Blood Games is a fickle mistress.

Finally, expect some craziness in the last 2 rounds; you're not out until you are dead or mathematically eliminated. The warrior “on the bubble” (3rd place) at the end of turn 9 rarely keeps that position. In the most recent slow Blood Games (Turn 1 August 2024), the top warrior since turn 1 was a WS who died on rd 9 at 5-4-5. This put my Wall of Steel in 4th place, but behind 2 Slashers. The only way for my WS to graduate was for 1) both Slashers to die, and 2) my WS to kill his opponent. Humble brag alert! FOMO "unbelievably slew" his opponent and is the last design below. It's a more enjoyable memory for my team than the *4* other managers who were part of this story. Sorry, gents!

As promised, here are my 9 graduates, a mix of Face-to-Face Overnight (4), In-Person (2), and Slow 28-day turn (3) formats:

16-18-3-8-21-5-13 WS 7-3-4 Why didn’t I go with 17 ST to get the extra Attack and Parry skill, while guaranteeing Good damage? I was young and dumb. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

17-18-3-11-21-3-11 TP 7-3-4 later achieved my personal record of 100 consecutive missed min ST trains

17-5-3-21-21-6-11 SL 9-1-6

17-16-3-13-21-3-11 TP 9-1-4

9-6-3-21-21-3-21 AB 9-1-3 started Little damage.

17-3-3-21-21-8-11 ST 10-0-4

17-5-3-21-21-4-13 LU 9-1-5

21-7-3-21-7-4-21 PR 10-0-5 a weird but successful design after my more conventional PR designs kept falling short

17-15-3-11-21-4-11 WS 8-2-4

Good luck! I hope to see you on the Blood Games sands! If you beat me with my own designs and strategy, I do expect a bourbon tribute when we meet in Tempe.

Riff-Raff, Founding Father, TEABAG Alliance
Usually running teams :
TEABAG@[Face-to-Face City]
Dead Mans Hand
Bad Beats
or some clever Yuppie theme

Posted: Sun May 25, 2025 10:21 am

GREAT job !!!!!!!

Fine read.

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Mar 10, 2008 Posts: 2033

Absolutely. Nice job!

Posted: Sat May 31, 2025 6:40 am

More info on Blood Games, including some articles by OAB, Mannequin and Dr. F can found here on the new RSI Blood Games Discord channel :

https://discord.com/channels/1005545197448478911/1361009102557282355

Email me at wceskimo@gmail.com if you need an invite to access the link.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2025 2:41 pm

Looking forward to the August 2025 BG all arena announcement coming soon!

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 2:27 pm

Slow BG announcement is in the 6/20/25 NL updates (arena 4 etc)

Good luck to all participants!

Expert Poster Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 79 Location: NJ

Just got first turn results yesterday.... not great, not terrible... only 1 death but it was my +4 DEC striker.... so, ouch. We have a thread or going to use this one here in general?

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2025 8:08 pm

Nice

Expert Poster Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 79 Location: NJ

I'm trying to weigh losing my +4 dec striker turn one against only one death turn 1 lol

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2025 4:38 am

mithril wrote:

I'm trying to weigh losing my +4 dec striker turn one against only one death turn 1 lol

Don't get too attached to any of your BG warriors. Odds are greater they will not survive

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 8:09 am

As we all wait for Turn 6 (aka The 2nd Half) of the current slow BG to arrive, let's take a quick look at the last 3 years of results and see if we can predict anything for the next 5 turns :

As of turn 5, 60.8% of warriors are dead (55.2% dead after Turn 4). Both are the highest totals since FTF68 in Tempe 2023. Good job! Roughly 50% of warriors are dead after turn 4 in any given BG. Way to crush dreams early!

If you're wondering if you still have a chance to graduate your BG godling, the answer is yes ! In the words of Mgrr (who, among other noteworthy accomplishments, was the youngest manager ever to TC, and one of the few ever to TC Primus), "Never give up in Blood Games." Warriors have graduated with as few as 3 kills, and my own last grad was 5-1-1 after turn 6 and managed to get out at 9-1-4. It can happen!

Of the last 13 contests and 39 grads, we've had at least one of each style:

- 9 AB (3-6 kills)
- 6 TP (3-5)
- 5 LU (3-7)
- 4 ST (4-5)
- 4 PS (3-4)
- 3 PL (3-4)
- 3 BA (3-4)
- 2 WS (3-4)
- 2 PR (3-5)
- 1 SL (3)

And the top 3 after rd 5 ? Only 10 of 39 have graduated.

% of grads by kill total :

- 3 (33%)
- 4 (46%)
- 5 (15%)
- 6 (3%)
- 7 (3%)

If you look at them cumulatively, it's:

- 33% @ 3
- 79% @ 4
- 94% @ 5
- 97% @ 6
- 100% @ 7

So while 3 kills puts you in the running to graduate, the goal is to get that 4th kill. After that, you need some luck so another warrior of the same style doesn't bump you. This happens most often with ABs but in any given BG, there are no guarantees.

My predictions w / current record. There's a lot of killing left to do, but here my best WAGs :

Grad #1

AB : Hemostasis 4-1-3 (Howlin Wolf) ; Sylvester Antolak 4-1-2 (Anarchist) ; Cobra 4-1-4 (Tripwire)

HW is infamous for swooping in at the last moment, and Anarchist has nearly as many Jalon grads as I have total grads. Cobra suffers from being The Rabbit in this situation.

Grad # 2

LU : Turducken Talon 4-1-4 (Floyd) ; Yakety Sax 4-1-2 (Pauly) ; Varda 4-1-2 (Khorvinus)

Floyd has the pedigree here, but 2 up and comers are hot on his heels should the NY Mauler stumble.

Grad # 3 (these 3 are my picks from "The Field")

PS William L. Weller 5-0-3 (mine, did you think I would leave myself out? lol)
PR Orm 4-1-3 (Norsemen - not sure who runs them, sorry. If you read this, please declare yourself. You're doing very well, and I'd love to know who you are)
ST Stingray 5-0-2 (Gentle Ben)

Of course, my picks may blow up fantastically with the turn 6 results posting on Sunday.

Best of luck to all! Hope you're enjoying the carnage.

Unchartered Poster Joined: Sep 28, 2007 Posts: 22

Nice write up RR Very Happy

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2026 5:31 am

RSI has closed the book on the Team Virgo saga :

All -- As a result of an input error, three warriors from the team Virgo, who had
participated in a prior Bloodgames arena, started to fight again in this year's
Bloodgames. Warriors who lost to these more experienced warriors have had their losses
removed and replaced with wins and kills. The warriors from team Virgo have been
removed from the rolls and have earned their freedom. -- RSI

Me, myself, personally I never fought Virgo. I like that RSI owned the input issue, and worked quickly to resolve it. Awarding a kill as well as a win was best case scenario for those affected (maybe 4 total fights?), but it's fair and I don't have an issue with it.

Now, back to the BG. More stabbing!

Expert Poster Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 79 Location: NJ

PR Orm 4-1-3 (Norsemen - not sure who runs them, sorry. If you read this, please declare yourself. You're doing very well, and I'd love to know who you are)

We already messaged so now you know hehe but I'll declare myself... thanks for the highlight, I love how Orm is doing any still have some high hopes for a couple others on my Norsemen, but it can all change in one turn. Surprised a) I have so many left alive and b) my damned AB seems to be a pacifist or (insert more derogatory names here) lol and wont kill a dang thing.

Mithril

Expert Poster Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 79 Location: NJ

mithril wrote:

PR Orm 4-1-3 (Norsemen - not sure who runs them, sorry. If you read this, please declare yourself. You're doing very well, and I'd love to know who you are)

We already messaged so now you know hehe but I'll declare myself... thanks for the highlight, I love how Orm is doing any still have some high hopes for a couple others on my Norsemen, but it can all change in one turn. Surprised a) I have so many left alive and b) my damned AB seems to be a pacifist or (insert more derogatory names here) lol and wont kill a dang thing.

Mithril

*and

Also, great writeup Smile