Manager's FtF Journal (Winter 2016)

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:27 pm

Not much to say for the opener. It was a typical FtF Tempe trip. I got into Tempe in the morning, had lunch with a friend and then went to the hotel in the afternoon. There was a lot going on at the hotel, but not as much as normal--at least it seemed that way. Was able to get a hotel room pretty close to the convention room on request. Like last year, we were in one of the downstairs (bigger) rooms which was nice. I suspect the FtF size will continue to grow in size as we grow older.

The hotel is pretty much the same. Garcia's is gone and replaced by the Urban Craft (burger) place. A whole bunch of bunnies seem to have taken to living on hotel grounds, which the kids who were at the hotel loved chasing after.

Grimm (my roommate) arrived shortly after but I was tired and wanted to take a nap. It was time for dinner when I woke up. We ended up going out to dinner with Seraphim (making his FtF return), Lee, Sandy, Mike, and Spirit, who ordered dessert for dinner. (Not that theres anything wrong with that, I'm just jealous)

It was pretty late when I got back so we just decided to head to bed. To my surprise--the room was already open Friday morning around 11:00, so after lunch we got to work. I still had around 10-15 strategies to do + bloodgames so I was pretty busy. The FtF crowd started to trickle in. It was pretty big group, I'd guess around 30 or so in all, a combination of new and old faces.

Making his FtF debut was Nomad. Seraphim was also there after being MIA for a long time.

Anyway--since I wasn't at the last FtF and hadn't bought any rollups since Jan of 2015, I ended up splurging on team roll-ups and bought 40 (in 3 separate batches). I thought they were above average for the most part, but none of the amazing ones that people look for.

RSI got to the room around mid afternoon and they were ready to receive stuff about late afternoon. Things started to get back pretty fast. Roll-ups were coming back pretty fast. I was happy that I got my favorite (bad) roll-up so I could submit it to the crap masters. I had been on the receiving end of that roll-up and I knew I hated it. The Crap Master draw was around 5:30. I thought I drew a really good roll-up considering the contest. There was a very workable 15 14 9 7 9 3 13 roll-up that I thought would make a really good scum or a fist AB. I went with Fist AB because I thought it would have a better chance of TC'ing Rookies than a Scum TP. (I know--the hubris of daring to think I could TC with a crap master roll-up...)

I also roll-up a blood games team--but it was after midnight and bloodgames overviews still hadn't come back yet--so I just gave up and went to bed being dead tired. Little did I know how good they would end up being roll-up though.

I started the day with 54 warriors being entered, and I ended up adding 25 more on Friday (various classes, mostly Rookies) and ended up with 79, my largest squad in a couple of years, I think. (That number way higher than I thought I sent earlier) Overall, I felt it was really strong with the crap masters and Primus fodder adding to the count.

Saturday
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Saturday arrives and I did not get a good night's sleep. Anyway, Round 1 was due at 8:00 so I got down there at 7:00. Turns were already printing, which were great. Almost everything was there by the time I got down. Had time to scarf down some breakfast at the Embassy.

Got my bloodgames teams back as well and one rolled up really well, so I made a mental note to make sure that to get it in for the mailer. I thought the early rounds were going pretty well, for the most part my good warriors were winning and my bad warriors were losing. The one exception was both my ADM and Freshmen bustouts who were 1-2 after 3 rounds! At that point I didn't know what to do. They both had 2 trains in the first 3 rounds and (combined with the pre-freeze split), they were defintiely over the line. In Freshmen, my bustout was a PS who was defintiely going to retire after the tourney regardless so I had to stay the course with him. The other was a ADM LU who I could salvage in Eligibles. I've heard stories about great comeback stories before, so I decided to stay the course. In ADM, it turned out to not matter as my putz Lunger lost in Round 4 again and fortunately missed a train--so we'll group and try in Eligibles. Meanwhile, my hilarious bad warrior Furtive Returns, (worst roll-up in the game from a skill standpoint) was roaring off to a 5-0 start.

Things were running smoothly. Apparently, Lee (accidentally?) took home the bloodgames so Sandy couldn't run them right away, thus the late start. But I thought we could have broken for lunch if we wanted to and still been on time. Around 2:00 PM I grabbed a togo order from that Urban Craft place. It was pretty good. I didn't have too many warriors being eliminated really early so things were still pretty busy for me. When my rookies didn't print I ended up having a long layover while I waited to get them and then that really sent me behind. I managed to just catch up again when RSI announced a dinner break. (We had some Thai food to go)
After dinner, we had one turn and then the overnight turn. Things were still going pretty well for me. The overnight turn was due at 2, but since everyone got them in early they ran them around 10:30. I was really tired from not having a good night's sleep the night before so I went to bed around 11:30 after getting my mail-in bloodgames team in and reading about half of my Round 7. I was already out in Contenders-Eligibles-Apprentices, so I was having a little bit more time to spend between different classes.

Sunday
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I overslept just a little and ended up going down to the convention center around 8:30. I finish reading Round 7 and it's still going ok. I grab my bloodgames and then go to the Embassy Suites breakfast place to read it. And Holy Shit my bloodgames guys just went off on everyone! I've gotten top team before, but don't think ever had a winning percentage that crazy. My kills were being distributed pretty evenly, and I was worried I wouldn't have anyone finish Top 3. But fortunately, my PL managed to get that 4th kill in round 9 and finish 3rd! (My TP finished 4th, just missing the podium)
I go back to the tourney and things are going pretty well in the tourney. Special thanks to Bubbaganoosh, who wrote "fast" in our warrior database notes--allowed me to go response a couple of times in ST vs. ST match ups--and all of them actually worked. Round 10 was happening around 11:30 or so and I'm like this is going to be the quickest tourney ever. But things would slow down after that. So I pretty much had the best Round 10 ever! Almost all of my bubble warriors won and I went like 15-3 for the round overall! It was crazy!

The afternoon really dragged on, but there was football to help keep us busy. Here's how the tourney broke down:

Primus: Before we get started, can I rant for a little bit? When I was a newbie manager, I would routinely get tourney records of 65% records in tourneys--but when you factored in horrible 3-27 type showings in Primus the would lower my W/L record of my tourney to like 57%. We were told we had to pay our dues and when we grew up our Primus records would be a plus because our warriors would be old and beat up on those other people's newbies. No one told us there would be things like Contenders taking away all the Primus Newbies, or Stylemaster Prizes where off-styles beg for 2-3 records, or TMM. It's like twenty years later, I have maxxed warriors of almost every style and I am still goint 13-17 in Primus! (And 5-15 in Contenders) God, I hope those old managers come back so I can pummel their outdated godlings with my mode fist Aimed Blows and teach them a lesson!!!

Anyway, back to the tourney! This was predictably dominated by TMM, but maybe he didn't dominate as much as he could have as 3/13 warrriors were run by other managers. Webbed Toes managed to make it to the Final 4 and leave some drama going. Kudos to TMM for making the TC fight listenable! Also making it to the TV circle was Papa Bear and a Wall of Steel made it to Round 10!

Contenders: Alfredo's Powerlungeritis was at the top of the leaderboard for most of the tourney. Perennial contender Burglar was lurking as well. But perhaps the biggest surprise was the quick emergence of Pepp both in the TV circle and in the winner's circle! (I guess he did have all those 21's) Even Mannequin was unprepared and didn't have his shirt ready. TUM takes this one in a surprise!

Eligibles: This one looked pretty up for grabs in Round 10. I thought maybe it would be Marcinko's turn to shine, but it came down Floyd and Anarchist. Anarchist's AB, Paul Wiedorfer takes this title after beating Floyd's Aimer twice in a row!

ADM: There were a few wide eyes in Round 10 when people realized the last undefeated of the tourney was a Basher! (Run by OAB) With (apparently) none of the Aimers busting, it looked like it would be a free for all. But the busting Lungers took over, relegating him to a 4th place finish. (Still pretty good) In the end, it was classic Lunger fest with Mannequin's Lunger taking it all the way.

Freshmen: Remember my PS that started 1-2? Well, he kept training and holding on from the bubble. Around Turn 8 or so he started to look really good. At the end of Round 13, I looked at the NL to see how many people were left and was like "oh shit he's in the TC fight!" I looked at the other warrior and it was against Howling Wolf's AB. I would have preferred not to go against such a riposty style but hopefully I had enough skills to keep the initiative. I didn't. After a few swings, Skip James riposted and took Audie out. Congrats to Howling Wolf on the TC!

Challengers: With no Challenger suck off, or graduation check on the Dead Challengers TVs from last October, etc. This class turned out to be a gigantic free for all with tons of overskilled warriors, several over FE warriors, a bunch of dead TVs who didn't graduate, etc. If you were a normal contending Challenger, you probably should have just stayed home. Anyway, making it through all the Carnage was LHI's Mephisto, who had one of the most famous FTF TC Fight Deaths of all time! But now Mephisto gets to win his TC fight and take home the trophy, over a decade later! TMM was the runner-up! I know I wasn't the only one in the Challengers run-offs to go: "WTF my Challengers TV lost to a STRIKER" Note that a lot of regular Challengers still were able to TV. Still, I would expect RSI to now overcompensate next Challengers suck off and we see tons of warriors graduating between now and the next Mail-In.

Champs: This was a star-studded class with warriors such as Mush, Paxton, Opal Ravioli, and Kardashian, (among others), hoping for a shot at TC glory. However, the run offs looked like the normal Striker Champions at the end there. (Poor Paxton died again). In the end, it was Dodgy Lunger, Thunder Snow, who was able to navigate the gauntlet of Strikers and pull out the TC. Grimm ends his TC Drought!

Adepts: Both of TMM's favorites were able to run the gauntlet and TC and runner-up again. A few warriors made it tough (2 losses each), but they were able to pull it out. They instantly become the favorites in Champs, and it remains to be seen if TMM will split them up to make separate runs.

Inits: Cute Snotling, (my predicted favorite) looked pretty good the whole tourney, even though he wasn't learning a lot of defense. (So much for favorite learn). Anyway, he made it to the Final 4, with a surprising warriors of mine in Awesome Edna. In the other half of the Final 4 was table mate Grimm and TMM's solid Lunger. In Round 16, there were 3 different possible combinations of match-ups--2 of them were good for me. (In this case, the match up program worked against me, preventing me from match up up against myself) Of course I get the one I didn't want and my warriors suck, leaving Grimm and TMM to battle it out for the TC. That said, TMM's Lunger was solid and totally deserving of the title, looking stronger as the tourney went on.

Apprentices: A strong showing by a Vlad's PL with one being in the leaderboard after Round 10, but then the tourney became a typical Striker-fest. I only sent one Apprentice so I wasn't able to fight many of the warriors, but it seemed pretty competitive. However, like Adepts, the end was still all TMM! I don't know how he can win all those Decise/Response battles!

Rookies: I felt pretty good about my final Snotling (called Final Snotling, mostly likely the last branded Snotling since RSI TC application rules will make them harder to build) and his ability to beat everything but skill AB's. Unfortunately, that's all he ran into from round 1 on. Eventually they learned enough attack to get him--but he's looking solid for the future. Final Snotling did well, but the final 2 came down to AB's run by Anarhist and Dr. Feelgood. After fighting both of them, I thought Clyde Choate was going to win, but Ace looked really good with that Fist.

Score Sheet:
Primus: TMM/TMM AB/AB
Contenders: TUM/Alfredo AB/AB
Eligibles: Anarchist/Floyd AB/AB
ADM: Mannequin/LHI LU/LU
Freshman: Howlin Wolf/Mgr AB/PS
Challengers: LHI/TMM LU/ST
Champs: Grimm/Chief I LU/ST
Adepts: TMM/TMM LU/LU
Inits: TMM/Grimm LU/WS
Apps: TUM/TMM ST/ST
Rookies: Dr. F/Anarchist AB/AB

Bloodgames: Total domination by TMM in the regular bloodgames, I think he got all 3 out for the 2nd time. Bloodgames is a pretty even field, so to dominate like that is totally awesome. I'm not sure who else made it out of the Mail-In. (Floyd, TMM, Mgr?) I need to totally make my own Bloodgames T-Shirt.

Crapmasters: Somewhere in Round 7 or 8, I felt I already had enough points to win the crapmaster, but I still in (unbelievably) in 2nd place behind Grimm! I finally passed him in Round 9 I think. It took 2 TVs to do it! I actually paid attention to my crapmasters more than some of my rookies. Next goal is to have all 3 Crapmaster TVs or a TC of course. 4 Crapmasters made it to Round 10 this time, which has got to be a record! Too bad I didn't win a TC, a Crapmasters, Bloodgames, TC would have been a perfect trifecta!

Grudges: The World beat the BOB 5-4 with Consortium scoring that tie breaking point in the final fight in dramatic fashion/huge upset! I unfortunately was too burned out to get the box score.

Post grudges, we went to dinner at some oyster bar with Grimm, Den, Deeders, Studcraft, Dameon Darkheart, Lee, Sandy, and Mike.

Overall, I had a good face! 350-230 (60.3%) with 17 TVs! Most TVs I've had in a long while. I actually did a pretty good job prepping this time so I feel that it was rewarded with high percentages even if I didn't have a warrior that was the best in it's class. We'll have to see what happens in the Mail-In and for New Orleans. Someone remind me when the freeze happens for the Mail-In?

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:29 am

Nicely done, Dwayne. so very great to have you back.

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 10:10 am

Thank you for sharing, especially for those who were unable to make the F-T-F. I enjoyed reading it over my lunch and made me remember my fond times in AZ.