Election Special: Season 10

Kimberly: Hello, listeners! You are listening to Take Me Out To The Blall Game, the world's most prescient blaseball podcast. I'm Kimberly Dauber, and I use she/her pronouns. Blaseball fans, it is election time once again for Season 10. We've got the lowdowns on the blessings and the decrees, but first, a word from our splonsors.

K: This episode of Take Me Out To The Blall Game was splonsored by: Ticker Tape Time. It's Ticker Tape Time! This is the part where we read what's listed on the ticker tape on blaseball.com. Home Run Leaders: Eduardo Woodman, Philly Pies - 7. Beasley Day, Philly Pies - 4. Jaxon Buckley, Philly Pies - 4. Randy Dennis, Miami Dale - 3. Beck Whitney, Miami Dale - 3. Earned Run Average leaders: Mooney Doctor, Canada Moist Talkers - 0. Edric Tosser, Chicago Firefighters - 0. Brock Forbes, Baltimore Crabs - 0. Hiroto Wilcox, Hades Tigers - .500. Yosh Carpenter, San Francisco Lovers: .500. The Blooddrain gurgled! Halexandrey Walton siphoned some of Nic Winkler's defensive ability to add an out! The Blooddrain gurgled! Dudley Mueller siphoned off some of Malik Romayne's hitting ability to add a ball! The Blooddrain gurgled! Glabe Moon siphoned some of Halexandrey Walton's defensive ability to add a strike! The Blooddrain gurgled! Spears Taylor siphoned off some of Sebastian Woodman's defensive ability to add an out! The Blooddrain gurgled! Spears Taylor siphoned off some of Hotbox Sato's defensive ability! The Blooddrain gurgled! Dudley Mueller siphoned off some of Reese Clark's hitting ability! The Blooddrain gurgled! Dudley Mueller siphoned some of Theodore Holloway's baserunning ability to add a ball! The Blooddrain gurgled! Isaac Johnson siphoned off some of Math Velasquez's defensive ability! The Blooddrain gurgled! Igneus Delacruz siphoned off some of Theodore Holloway's defensive ability! We are all love blaseball. Thank you for listening to Ticker Tape Time.

K: Hey there listeners, this is Take Me Out To The Blall Game, our election special for Season 10 of blaseball. I am here with Dr. J, the host of WSHU: The Voice of the Charleston Shoe Thieves. Dr. J, thank you so much for coming.

Dr. J: Kimberly, thank you for having me, it is a privilege and an honor.

K: Absolutely. So, before we get started, Dr. J, what should we call you, what are your pronouns, and is the Commissioner doing a great job?

J: So, real name's Jared, but usually when I am broadcasting, I just call myself Dr J. for short - pronouns, I prefer he/him, and the Commissioner is always doing a great job.

K: Alright, well, thank you so much for coming. Now listeners, we're going to get to the elections, but before we start, you may remember at the end of Season 9 there was a fight - an epic battle between the Charleston Shoe Thieves and the Shelled One, the peanut god of blaseball - and Dr J. found himself commentating that game after the Shoe Thieves had just won the championships. It was a legendary livestream, and before we get into this, these elections, I've just got to ask: what was that like? What did it feel like to you?

J: I'd done commentary for thirteen games. My voice was already practically destroyed, and I'm ready to be like, "Okay, we did it," and then the screen goes black, the big peanut came out and started taunting us, and then we go into an RPG battle, which, from my broadcast experience doing actual play, a role playing game podcast, I was back in my element, but I certainly wasn't prepared to do commentary and figure out things like, "Well I don't know if Jaylen Hotdogfingers has enough DPS to be able to handle this fight!" I was not prepared for that. I was prepared for, like, you know, the the victory parade, and to thank everyone who tuned in that day, and call it a night, and then it was like, "Nope, here's game fourteen!"

K: What was the moment where you went, "Oh no, this is happening"?

J: When I saw the two health bars. I'm a huge gamer, and I know what health bars are. I've been looking at health bars for 30+ years, I knew what was happening! Here I am, trying to figure out the rules - I've been spending weeks trying to figure out the rules of blaseball, and now I have a grand total of about three seconds in front of 300 viewers to figure out how this game works so I don't look super embarrassed in front of everyone!

K: Well, you did an amazing job, and the video for this commentary can be found on the internet somewhere, which we'll put a link to in the show notes, so you can go check it out if you want - it is absolutely epic. Okay, well, we've got to move ourselves onto elections, but definitely check out Dr. J's Twitch stream, which we'll plug again at the end of the show. Okay, so that was the end of Season 9, we are now moving on to Season 10, and it is election time. It is time for us to make some decisions as a group of blaseball fans or participants, about what this game is going to look like for the next season. Quick summary of what elections are, for new listeners: they happen every season, there are really two kinds, there are decrees - decrees affect all of blaseball - and there are blessings, which affect particular teams. That's basically all you really need to know about them in order to get into it and have some fun, so we're gonna talk about blessings first and then after the break we'll come back and tell you about decrees. So, Season 10 blessings: Dr. J, what do you think are the ones to watch this season? Powerful ones, interesting ones, ones that are just plain cool...

J: Probably some of the most popular ones that I would point out right now - a first would be Doctor Smedley's Umpire Cream. The text on that is, "Rub it in. Your Team is permanently Fireproof." During Eclipse weather, the umpires have the tendency to incinerate random players, which means that player's gone, forever and ever amen. This basically makes the entire team fireproof, and if I had to guess, I would probably say the Chicago Firefighters will be voting for this one, because it's the most on-brand blessing for them. Taking a look... Sealant: "Plug the leak. Your Team cannot have blood stolen in Blooddrain." So, one of the weather types is Blooddrain - if you've been following along in Season 10 it's one of the only three weather types available - and what Blooddrain does, is that a random player will drain blood from a different player on the other team, and steal their stars. Not having to worry about Blooddrain means that you don't have to worry about debuffs happening to your team. Rogue Waves is interesting: "5 Hitters on your Team become permanently Repeating." Last season we saw hitters who had been hit by Jaylen Hotdogfingers, who has several different deals with the Microphone going on right now - those particular hitters would become Repeating, which meant that in Reverb weather they had the possibility they'd keep returning to bat.

K: Would they keep advancing bases, as they batted?

J: Oh, yes. So, like, Nagomi Mcdaniel could hit a flyout to Nagomi Mcdaniel, or hit a sacrifice fly to Nagomi Mcdaniel and let Nagomi Mcdaniel run into home plate. So, weird stuff like that could happen. Depending on which hitters this falls onto, you could have a very dangerous batting core.

K: The one that caught my eye was Divisional Walk in the Park and Tag-Team Fourth Strike, especially because of what we've been seeing with the Shoe Thieves this season and the power of getting walked.

J: Yeah. So, those will probably be the other two that I'd mention here, because they fundamentally change the rules. So, Tag-Team Fourth Strike: "Give Your Team and the last place Team in the opposite Sub-League the Fourth Strike next Season," which means that they have four strikes until they're considered out, Now, it doesn't really affect any ground outs or flyouts, but it is going to make the pitcher's job a little bit more difficult to be able to get those strikeouts. On the flip side of that coin is Divisional Walk in the Park: every team in your division walks on ball three, instead of ball four. With the Shoe Thieves being affected by Flinch, which means that they aren't allowed to swing until the first legitimate strike is thrown against them, the Shoe Thieves have actually seen a lot of walks this season.

K: Alright. Well,those are the blessings, so if you're not sure which ones to vote for, go ahead and look at that Tag-Team Fourth Strike, go ahead and take a look at that Doctor Smedley's Umpire Cream, to make your team fireproof, go ahead and look at that Rogue Waves blessing, and put some your votes in there. Hopefully this helped you figure out blessings a little bit - there's always so many of them, it can be hard to really take in all of them and understand their consequences, but those are the ones that we think are the ones to look out for. Alright, that's all the time we've got to talk about blessings - we'll be right back to talk about decrees for Season 10 after this short break.

K: This episode of Take Me Out To The Blall Game was splonsored by Henry Marshallow.

Henry Marshallow: Hello! I'm Henry Marshallow! Not "Marshmallow", but I'm think peoples are geting better at this. Though, I am a marshmallow, so am understand the confusion. I used to be on the Garages, but... Oh, thirty seconds? Is that...is that a lot? Not a lot? Oh, okay, I'll talk faster. [quickly] I used to be on the Garages and then I got switched to the Pies... Oh, what I want to say? Well, I'm wants to tell everyone that is gonna be okay! I know things are bads right now, but is important to take care of each other, and to take care of yourself. Hugs are always good, for anyone who wants hugs, and I will be happy to hug you if you want... Oh? Oh, okay, okay. Goodsbye, everyone! I love you!

K: Hello, listeners! You are listening to Take Me Out To The Blall Game, our Season 10 election special - I am here with Dr. J, the host of WSHU: The Voice of the Charleston Shoe Thieves. In the last half of the episode we talked about blessings for Season 10, and now we're going to get on to the biggest happenings in all of blaseball: the decrees. So Dr. J, what have we got this season for decrees?

J: Alright, so we have three decrees coming up this season - the decree with the most votes from the community will go into effect, so one of these three will go in. The first is Black Hole: "If your team scores 10+ runs in a game, open a Black Hole," the second is Eliminator: "Every time a team hits a Home Run, there is a chance your Opponent loses a hitter for the remainder of the game," and last is Self-Destruct: "When your Team is Shamed, initiate the Countdown." And it is important to note that all three of these are going to be permanent - none of them say "for the next season" as some of these have said before - these are going to be permanent rule changes to blaseball.

K: Alright, so those are the ones that we've got for this season: what do you think the implications of any one of these would be for the game if it got put into effect?

J: Yeah, sure thing. So, we'll start with Black Hole: "If your team scores 10+ runs in a game, open a Black Hole." Now, there's been a lot of speculation with the Shoe Thief Nation as to what this will be, and it sounds an awful lot like a mercy rule, from what we've been able to assume. And there's really good ramifications for this, because, obviously, you want your team to do good, and it kind of feels good if you run the score up on a team, but at the same time, if you're doing well, you don't want to capstone that game off with the fact that your best hitter just got burnt up by an ump. If you've already clinched the win, why not go ahead and wrap that game up, other than to just pad your stats? You've already got the W, just take it gracefully.

K: Okay, so "mercy rule", meaning that once your team scores, in this case, ten or more runs, then the game ends. Just right there.

J: Right. And I'll contrast with Self-Destruct, in which case it says that there's a countdown, so it seems like with Black Hole it would happen immediately. And again, you know, if you have teams that are up 10-1, 10-2, something like that, in the fifth or sixth inning, that's three fewer innings that something bad could happen to them. Moving onto Eliminator: "Every time a team hits a Home Run, there is a chance your Opponent loses a hitter for the remainder of the game," reminds me of dlodgeball a little bit, and I looked into this for the Charleston Shoe Thieves - and your mileage may vary depending on your team - but as of right now, for the the Shoe Thieves, our hitters are averaging about one home run a game, and our pitchers are averaging giving up about one home run a game, which means that any given game there are two chances, not two guaranteed times, but two chances, that a random hitter could be removed from the game, and - again, your mileage may vary - I'm gonna take, for example, Richardson Games, from the Shoe Thieves, who right now is a two-and-a-half-star hitter (not that great), but is currently a seven-and-a-half-star baserunner and an eight-star defender, because of the Blooddrain, and they keep drinking defense. So, you know, losing Richardson Games might not have a big implication for hitting, but at the same time, we just lost our best defender by far.

K: But then again, it also doesn't necessarily say that that player won't play defense. They might just stop hitting.

J: Yeah - they "lose a hitter", it could just be like being shelled. Any of the hitters that were previously shelled could still field just fine.

K: Right. Somehow, yeah. In spite of being stuck in a giant peanut shell.

J: You know, we can just push them out there in the field, and if it lands in their glove, it lands in their glove, you know?

K: Yeah. This Eliminator perplexed me, because like you're saying, it only would help you if you knock out one of your opponent's better hitters. So I guess this might be good for teams that have a higher proportion of better hitters? But that doesn't even make sense - all the hitters are gonna be... Like, half the hitters are going to be better than the other half of the hitters no matter which way you slice it.

J: Right.

K: I'm not sure about this decree, I don't know what's going on with it.

J: Yeah, personally I don't know about this one. It's interesting, it wouldn't shock me disappeared as a blessing later on. So the last one, Self-Destruct, "When your Team is Shamed, initiate the Countdown," so shame - for those of you who aren't familiar - is that in the event a team comes back in the bottom of the ninth, the game continues, even though the win has been clinched, and we go into shame mode. The away team starts to be shamed by the home team as they run the score up on a game whose decision is already been decided. Now, the ramification here is that the past few seasons we have had blessings called targeted shame, in which case any time you get shamed, the number of runs that are scored against you become negative points that you have to take during your next game, so we've seen some games start where teams were already like -3, -2, something like that, already in the hole. So, Self-Destruct, what this suggests is that, "When your Team is Shamed, initiate the Countdown," so what this sounds like to me is that it's going to keep teams who get shamed frequently from having to deal with those big deficits. Now, the interesting thing is there's no real blessings this season that prevent targeted shame, so I'm curious if there's other ramifications for what Self-Destruct is, because Self-Destruct isn't just...

K: Yeah, it's kind of drastic.

J: They could have called this "Countdown", and it would've sounded like "Oh, yeah, it'll just end the game!" No, they called it Self-Destruct. And the picture was a bomb with a clock on it.

K: And we all know that they're not kidding around! We just fought a god!

J: Yeah - just joking around with some of the people in the Shoe Thief Nation, I mentioned that, "Oh, so it's kind of like Voltorb in Pokémon, when it uses Self-Destruct, you know - it'll end a battle, but it'll usually end it for both people," so not sure what the ramifications are, but it seems interesting and I'll be interested to see how the votes go. In my heart of hearts, I feel like Black Hole's probably gonna be the most popular.

K: Yeah. And I actually have another reason that I think people should vote for Black Hole: I think that what you said, about Black Hole ending games sooner in order to stop teams from getting debuffed or players from getting incinerated, I think that that will help all of the teams get stronger in order to be able to defeat the Peanut at the end of the season.

J: Yeah, just fewer opportunities to take those debuffs right now would probably be best, because that directly affects team spirit and our ability to fight against the Pod team. Probably of those three, I would probably be choosing between Black Hole or or Self-Destruct, and Self-Destruct mainly because of just the morbid curiosity as to what it would actually do. Because I have a suspicion as to what Black Hole would do, and if... I looked at Season 9 - Black Hole would have affected four Charleston Shoe Thieves games. We actually scored 10+ runs in three games, and we had one team score 10+ on us once. So four out of ninety-nine games had 10+ runs, so again, as far as personal team-wise, it didn't happen that often.

K: It's usually just when some team's getting smashed, like if the Crabs play the Tacos or something like that.

J: So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but I imagine, just taking an educated guess, Black Hole and Self-Destruct will probably be the two most popular.

K: Alright, well, we're almost out of time - Dr. J, thank you so much for your analysis of this, this is really interesting and I think it's gonna be very helpful for the listeners.

J: Kimberly, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

K: Absolutely. Before we go, though, I've got one more question for you that I ask at the end of every show, and that is, what are you love about blaseball?

J: So, probably what I love about blaseball is the community. It really empowered me during a time where creativity had kind of stagnated, as a result of things going on right now. Blaseball, and mainly the community, have kind of pushed me out of this fugue state that I've been fighting with since March. That's been nice, it's been really uplifting, it's been good for my spirits, and the support I've gotten from everyone, especially as a result of the Season 9 finals, has been absolutely tremendous, and I thank each and every one of you. If you have listened to WSHU, I thank each and every one of you for supporting it, and thank you for helping me try to get out of that funk and get back into things that I enjoy doing.

K: I am love the creativity of blaseball. It's so magical. It's wonderful. Alright listeners, we are out of time for today. That is all we've got, thank you so much for listening to Take Me Out To The Blall Game - before we go, Dr. J, if our listeners want to watch you on your Charleston Shoe Thieves streams, where can they do that? Where can they find you?

J: So, if you would like to follow along with the Shoe Thief Nation, you can watch me on twitch.tv/blaseballWSHU. I stream regularly irregularly - I have been trying to get the openers and the closers if I'm able to, the weekends are a lot easier, so I've been trying to get the playoffs - no guarantees, but I'm gonna try and do playoffs for as far as we go, it's looking pretty good for the Charleston Shoe Thieves for Season 10 at least to make it into the playoffs. Also, I've made it a habit to do election coverage, but yeah, you can follow me at twitch.tv/blaseballWSHU, we'd be glad to have you in the Shoe Thief Nation.

K: Alright, thank you so much, Dr. J! Listeners, remember to subscribe to this show, Take Me Out To The Blall Game, wherever podcasts are found, follow us on Twitter @blaseballpod, check out our website - we have a website now! - at blaseballpodcast.com, go take a look, there's a secret hidden there, if you find it you can tell people, but only if you tell them it's a secret, and finally email us at blaseballpodcast@gmail.com. You can send in a question, dedicate a soulscream, or suggest something that we should interview you about. And finally, if you know someone else who would enjoy this podcast, do them a big favor and tell them that it exists and where to find it. I bet that they'll be glad that you did. I am Kimberly Dauber, this has been Take Me Out To The Blall Game, and thank you for participating in the cultural event of blaseball.