Special Event: Blaseball Season 7

September 14, 2020 9:17 AM

New week, new season: between the resurrection of Jaylen Hotdogfingers, the postponement of the Blood Bath, and the imprisonment of league powerhouses Jessica Telephone and Nagomi Mcdaniel inside giant peanut shells, season 7 of Internet League Blaseball is starting off weird. Which is normal? Anyway, here we go.

Here's the season 6 thread!

posted by cortex (117 comments total)

So did we not Eat the Rich this season? I am so very, very broke.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:20 AM on September 14, 2020

We ate the rich! Or possibly...half the rich? I'm not clear on whether that was a joke or not. The idea being I guess that the gods resented the half-measures of getting the peanut trio up on the podium but not leaving them there, and so took only half-measures in eating the rich?

But funds were certainly distributed at least in part; I finished with 8K and ended up at about 8.3K after Sunday.
posted by cortex at 9:23 AM on September 14, 2020

Huh, I finished with 13 coins and started the season with 13 coins. Maybe only half of us were invited to dinner?
posted by restless_nomad at 9:37 AM on September 14, 2020

I did not get any redistribution of coinage wealth.
posted by slogger at 9:44 AM on September 14, 2020

I have 0 coins at the start of this season, because I didn't have time to look at it the back half of the week last week and I'm assuming I got eaten. I had like 10 or 15k coins without taking win gold into account for those days.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:44 AM on September 14, 2020

I finished with ~2800, and didn't get any slice of the rich.
posted by mollweide at 9:48 AM on September 14, 2020

I finished just under 10k and got an EtR payout. I believe the EtR threshold was right around 14k.
posted by noneuclidean at 9:57 AM on September 14, 2020

uh is "THE BIRDS ARE AFTER THE CHILDREN" new
posted by cortex at 10:29 AM on September 14, 2020

Well, we've certainly always known. But I think the message is new.
posted by curious nu at 10:49 AM on September 14, 2020

Last week I was starting to see lots of people saying "blaseball looks interesting but it seems impenetrable" so the new FAQ is a great addition.
posted by theodolite at 11:08 AM on September 14, 2020

So the move afoot is to get the top 10 filled with incinerated players, apparently.
posted by nubs at 11:30 AM on September 14, 2020

Ok that may be the most interesting bad idea, yeah.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:31 AM on September 14, 2020

I dunno, Snackrifice has some pretty good game-bustin' possibilities too.
posted by curious nu at 11:32 AM on September 14, 2020

I saw rumor that the Tacos were going to try to get as much of their team as possible shelled so they'd get to really clean up with Extended Party Time.
posted by cortex at 11:44 AM on September 14, 2020

this song made me cry so hard. All of the output from the Garages is phenomenal. There're a couple of the EPs on Spotify but everything's on bandcamp as well.
posted by curious nu at 11:46 AM on September 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

..yup, that one's a tearjerker. Man, what a satisfying narrative arc.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:09 PM on September 14, 2020

The Mike Townsend Garages songs need to get released as their own EP. The rapid release of songs from those guys and others (looking at you, cortex), has made me wonder why there haven't been more musical projects based upon rapid-fire, narrative-driven, spaghetti-at-the-wall collaboration. I want this for all the things.
posted by q*ben at 12:55 PM on September 14, 2020

So I think someone posted on the last season thread about some teams taking Blaseball a bit too seriously for their taste, and the Mills Discord just had another participant switch teams and said something similar. I mainly lurk in the Mills Discord, but I've been pleasantly surprised by genuinely nice everyone seems to be. If anyone is looking for a fun and welcoming team to hang out with on Discord, the Mills would be happy to have you!
posted by noneuclidean at 1:04 PM on September 14, 2020

Uh Jaylen Hotdogfingers has started becoming... bloodthirsty.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:26 PM on September 14, 2020

blaseball is so good
posted by curious nu at 2:04 PM on September 14, 2020

Based (blased?) on the previous MetaFilter posts I joined just today as a fan of the Mexico City WILD Wings (that's our team name, regardless of what the official record says, and I will not hear otherwise). We're pushing for the Hot Sauce Packet this season after being placed in the "Mild" league, being "renamed," and having our lawsuit rebuffed. #SauceTheWings
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:13 PM on September 14, 2020

Yay another Wild Wings fan! Sauce the Wings!
posted by restless_nomad at 2:23 PM on September 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

The new garages song is great.
I am thinking this might be the week I get around to writing some vaporwave for the Dale...
posted by kaibutsu at 5:36 PM on September 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

So the returned Hotdogfingers has started throwing beanballs, including three against the Moist Talkers, who started the whole resurrection idea.

That's blaseball folks!
posted by nubs at 7:02 PM on September 14, 2020

I'm new this week after many authors I follow on twitter have been tweeting about blaseball. Definitely seems entertaining! But I won't lie, also slightly impenetrable even with the faq.

(I've also been finding the site kind of buggy, is that just me? Crashed my phone browser several times, stuff seems to time out a lot with a spinning baseball in a computer browser. Maybe getting too busy?)
posted by advil at 5:46 AM on September 15, 2020

Yeah the game is built out of spare shoelaces and bubble gum. Hopefully they'll get enough money soon to improve it.

I was thinking - I like the Snackrifice plan, but it really should be three Peanuts, five Tacos, a Wild Wing, and a Breath Mint.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:52 AM on September 15, 2020

So is the Snackrifice the same thing as the Tacos getting shelled? I'm a Tacos booster and can't figure it out.

The Tacos Discord channel is very fun and irreverent. If things are getting Too Serious, come to the Tacos! I started just betting (because betting fake money is fun), but then started getting caught up in the narrative. Now I'm making linocut prints for handmade Tacos t-shirts.

Yeah, the site seems buggy. It often gets hung up while placing bets. Usually logging out and back in seems to fix it. I really should kick some coins to their Patreon.
posted by slogger at 10:03 AM on September 15, 2020

Here's the explanation of the Snackrifice that I've seen.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:31 AM on September 15, 2020

I like the Snackrifice plan, but it really should be three Peanuts, five Tacos, a Wild Wing, and a Breath Mint.

This is making my mouth Moist, but I'll go Talk 'er up.
posted by nubs at 11:13 AM on September 15, 2020

Okay well Moody Cookbook just got incinerated due to Jaylen making them Unstable, so now we've got some Proper Drama!
posted by curious nu at 4:11 PM on September 15, 2020

I wonder what will be required to discharge Jaylen's debtedness (if anything can); Moody getting the Egads My Roast Is Ruined treatment doesn't seem to have changed her status there.
posted by cortex at 4:20 PM on September 15, 2020

OH MY GODS this is amazing and awful and it's gonna be a long week, two tigers and one talker incinerated due to the Unstability
posted by curious nu at 4:20 PM on September 15, 2020

I'm just gonna post the whole post-game log for that Tigers/MTs game because it's the longest log I've ever seen.

The underdog Moist Talkers won the game.

The Tigers were shamed!

You bet 1000 on the Tigers and lost.

A Debt was collected. Rogue Umpire incinerated Tigers hitter Moody Cookbook! Replaced by Carmelo Plums

The Instability spreads to the Moist Talkers's Elijah Bates!

A Debt was collected. Rogue Umpire incinerated Moist Talkers hitter Elijah Bates! Replaced by Kiki Familia

The Instability spreads to the Tigers's Yazmin Mason!

A Debt was collected. Rogue Umpire incinerated Tigers hitter Mclaughlin Scorpler! Replaced by Frasier Shmurmgle

The Instability spreads to the Moist Talkers's Antonio Wallace!

posted by cortex at 4:31 PM on September 15, 2020

Tony Wallace is a long-time beloved Shoes batter who was very recently stolen from us by the Moist Talkers (who have a bad habit of doing that, Workman Gloom also plays for them these days), and so seeing this chain lightning tearing through the game and spreading to Tony, the whole Shoes discord chat was glued to the game and just hoping for it to end, even as it went into extra innings.

Tony made it out alive and for that I am truly thankful. Losing him once was hard enough.
posted by cortex at 4:33 PM on September 15, 2020

And this is just speculation, but the fact that it went back and forth from Tigers to MTs to Tigers to MTs there suggests that it's likely to always pingpong back and forth between the teams and could in the course of a multi-game set under eclipse conditions just do a tremeeeeendous amount of damage to both lineups. And if it crosses 3-game sets someone can take it with them to another matchup.

What I think is known about Instability: it lasts for one game week, and a week in Blaseball is 9 days (so three 3-game sets) starting on the 1st, the 10th, the 19th, etc. Eclipse weather is when incinerations happen. Someone peeked at forbidden knowledge and established that Tony has two more Eclipse games to get through before week four, game days 28-36, is over and he stops being unstable. (One is day 33, the next game up, which you can see on the site; the other is future schedule stuff that can be queried from the site's API but isn't published, hence Forbidden). So...I'm worried about our 12-foot tall plastic halloween skeleton. I hope he can stay safe.
posted by cortex at 4:48 PM on September 15, 2020

All this incineration is stressful, but the Mints are now top of Mild High sooooooooo...
posted by q*ben at 5:01 PM on September 15, 2020

Uhhh, apparently the incinerations aren't slowing down. I think we've lost three more already, including Tony.
posted by noneuclidean at 6:12 PM on September 15, 2020

The carnage! The carnage!
posted by nubs at 6:26 PM on September 15, 2020

Correction, it was two incinerations: Kiki Familia (who just replaced Elijah Bates and only lasted two outs!) and Antonio Wallace
posted by noneuclidean at 6:34 PM on September 15, 2020

Kiki Familia played 5 and a third innings before being incinerated, and now holds the record for shortest career in blaseball.

That record may not stand for long.
posted by nubs at 6:35 PM on September 15, 2020

Okay, it's official, I can't keep track of anything in Blaseball apparently. I swear I saw someone say Kiki only lasted two outs on Discord. Nevertheless, a disturbingly short career.
posted by noneuclidean at 6:39 PM on September 15, 2020

I get my information from the Society for Internet Blaseball Research
posted by nubs at 6:53 PM on September 15, 2020

Tony Wallace just got incinerated.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:56 PM on September 15, 2020

I am having a lot of feelings about Tony Boney getting delaced.
posted by cortex at 7:49 PM on September 15, 2020

I'm very much enjoying all the lore and world-building by the fans and discussion and rp twitter accounts and bizarre in-game events and strategizing around the end-of-season voting.

However, I've also found that the actual gameplay pretty quickly became mechanical, with limited meaningful choices. I've already maxed out on High Roller Snake Oil and am placing max bets on nearly every game. I'm not maxed out on pendants or passive income, but I'm at the point where any additional purchases are unlikely to turn a profit this season. Since I'm focused right now on just getting as many votes as possible in order to Sauce the Wings, I'm not making any further purchases of those this season.

So my "daily" routine has become:

• Pick my idol for the day. This is one of the few strategic decisions I make; I have a list of 3-5 top pitchers each day of the pitching rotation; I go down the list and compare opponents to make sure I don't pick an idol pitching against a strong opponent, especially one pitching against the Jazz Hands with their current four-strike benefit.
• If I have >10000 coins, buy votes until at or just below 10000 (or somewhere between 9000 and 10000 if the Wild Wings are disfavored and I don't want to bet too much on them).
• Place max bets on all games, always betting on the favorite if ≥53%, except always bet on the Wings (but a small bet if they're disfavored). If the odds are 52-48 or closer then possibly think more about which team to bet on. On those occasions I have <10000 coins to start with, then there's more choice as far as how much to bet on each game, but even then it's mostly mechanical. A bit more on higher percentages, less on lower. In any case, bet all remaining coins.
• Beg. It may be just a few coins, but free money is free money.

So, I'm not finding there's a whole lot of meaningful strategic decisions in daily play once you've reached a certain level. The leveling in payouts isn't steep enough to make the choice of bets challenging except for games with nearly equal odds. I'll stick around through this season but I'm not sure it's enough to hold my attention after that.

Although I haven't looked into whether the stated odds are accurate, which might be an fruitful area for exploration.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:39 AM on September 16, 2020

An example of insufficently scaled payouts: A 1000-coin bet on a 70-30 game pays out 1840 for the favored team, and 2804 for the disfavored team. Which means, if those odds are accurate, the expected (in the mathematical sense) profit/loss for a bet on the favored team is +288, and -158.8 for a bet on the disfavored team.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:04 AM on September 16, 2020

I guess it kind of depends on what you're coming to Blaseball for; as a betting game, I agree it lacks depth. As a story-generator, however, it's pretty awesome; I'm finding I'm more engaged with what's happening in terms of the weird rules and interactions with the fanbase.
posted by nubs at 7:45 AM on September 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the competitive streak in me feels compelled to play every waking hour, even if the gameplay isn't that interesting...and the fact I'm still working from home means I can mostly do that. I should probably learn to let that go and just revel in the story, but that's easier said than done. ("... And who is willing to cut out a piece of his own heart?" - Solzhenitsyn)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:02 AM on September 16, 2020

Yeah I have been following for two seasons before even really paying attention to betting strategy. I finally got sick of not having more than a vote or two at the end of the season to spend some effort this season maxing stuff out, but the real fun is following the fanlore.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:09 AM on September 16, 2020

Picking one of the best batter or pitchers in the league and just letting that idle all season is good for around 50K+ in passive income if you want to have some voting power but not micromanage much. The betting game is very perfunctory and being more blasé about it has been good for me too, min-maxing idle fiend that I am. Engaging with the creative side has been hugely rewarding by comparison; I'm working on a draft of an in memoriam song called "Rest In Violence" this morning and brainstorming verse ideas in Shoe Thieves chat.
posted by cortex at 9:18 AM on September 16, 2020

I may be missing something but if it lets you switch idols for 200 gold any time you want, shouldn't you be switching Idols to a starting pitcher in between every game? As long as they throw one strikeout you break even.
posted by DynamiteToast at 10:54 AM on September 16, 2020

Chasing good pitchers around every hour is possibly an optimal idol-income strategy and definitely a pretty good one regardless, yeah. Requires hourly maintenance of course, and a bit more attention than just max betting favored teams at that, but it's a definite money maker.

Picking a hot batter and leaving there takes a lot less work and will mean income pretty much every game, though, so it's an attractive hands-off approach. Same for some of the best pitchers, really, though since it's only once every five games the income is a little more bursty.
posted by cortex at 12:10 PM on September 16, 2020

Many people do exactly that. Although I did it too early and got the first strikeout pendant not noticing that it wouldn't be enough to cover the cost of switching. You need to get to one of the levels where you get 30-50 coins/SO to reliably cover the cost of switching. I'm up to 100/SO now and doing pretty well with that. 200/SO is only at the highest level of SO pendant, and it costs a cumulative 22450 coins to get to that level.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:15 PM on September 16, 2020

It was recently pointed out on one of the Discord channels that you can buy pendants during a game and they'll be effective for that game. Particularly useful if you notice your idol is in the final inning or two of a potential shutout. (Depending on how superstitious you are and worried about jinxing it.) Could also be useful with the other pendants there but it's more work as you have to watch the game log closely to know if your idol is doing well in one of the other categories.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:22 PM on September 16, 2020

Yea putting it on the best batter is probably better, but I invested in the pitcher rewards first so I think I'll keep chasing good pitcher games.
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:26 PM on September 16, 2020

Just noticed this deep burn in the postgame announcement: "The mildly flavored Mild Wings won the game".
posted by q*ben at 1:52 PM on September 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Watch for what it says when we're heavy favorites and win. (I don't know what the threshold for heavy favorites is.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:44 PM on September 16, 2020

If you have the time/attention to bet every round/"day", max-betting the overdog in every game and swapping your idol to the best available pitcher that round is definitely the way to go if you care about coins. I started this season with a little under 2000 coins and broke 100k tuesday evening. (And then this morning I spent half of them maxing my batting pendants, so I can throw the idol to a batter before going to bed at night.)

I don't have any evidence for whether the stated win chances are accurate, but my suspicion is that they are, simply because the easiest way to generate them would be to just run a hundred sample games in the background and report the number of wins for each team. That wouldn't take into account e.g. incerations that happen in the current game after the numbers have been posted, but that sort of thing is rare enough that with 990 games in a season, it's probably not worth the trouble to take it into account for betting.
posted by rifflesby at 7:13 PM on September 16, 2020

here's my pitcher rotation for this season, for your convenience:

Polkadot Patterson
Axel Trololol
Whoever is happiest of: Beasley Gloom, Monty Bullock, Qais Dogwalker, Hiroto Wilcox
Whoever is happiest of: Cornelius Games, Parker Meng, Burke Gonzales, Winnie Hess
Elvis Figueroa
posted by rifflesby at 7:19 PM on September 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’m lazy. Last season I bet the over-under on every game. My win/loss is usually 6/4 or 5/5, sometimes 7/3 and occasionally 4/6. I was able to amass enough coins to max out all my pendants, snake oil, etc. Now I’m just trying to stockpile as many coins as possible. It’s a bit perfunctory but keeps me interested. I plan on cashing all in for votes after the playoffs, my goal is 1000+. From there I will try to coordinate with my fellow Tacos or just try to create more chaos. Because 2020.
posted by slogger at 7:33 PM on September 16, 2020

Does anyone else internally refer to the Moist Talkers as the Moisties?
posted by slogger at 8:31 PM on September 16, 2020

Umps have claimed Dominic Marijuana,
Unstability passed to the Dalé.
posted by curious nu at 8:56 PM on September 16, 2020

There are no more Marijuanas.
posted by slogger at 9:17 PM on September 16, 2020

Jessica Telephone was pecked free by the birds! even the giant peanut seemed surprised
posted by rifflesby at 12:54 AM on September 17, 2020

And now Sebastian Telephone has been claimed by a rogue umpire.
posted by mollweide at 4:41 AM on September 17, 2020

Jessica Telephone seems to have come out of the experience with a permanent Super-Allergy, which is interesting and (given the chain-lightning effects of Instability this season) all sorts of ominous in its possibilities.
posted by cortex at 7:26 AM on September 17, 2020

Welp, someone in the discord posted some parody Dolly Parton lyrics this morning about the whole Hotdogfingers situation, and it made me laugh, so: Jaylen (Please Don't Bean My Man)
posted by cortex at 12:10 PM on September 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

Interesting post from TGB about the game over on Medium, which explicitly calls Blaseball a horror game. I'm even more intrigued now about where they're taking this.
posted by noneuclidean at 12:23 PM on September 17, 2020

Well, it seems Workman Gloom got beaned in that 19-inning slog last hour. So I don't think the gods heard your song, Cortex.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:57 PM on September 17, 2020

This is a very exciting day, for all of us Boston Flowers Fans! We are now in PARTY TIME, aka the Boston Tea Party!

i have been playing for just three days, i don't know what's happening and i don't understand baseball, let alone blaseball, i'm so confused and lost
posted by meese at 3:25 PM on September 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Workman Gloom is gone, though he apparently hit a home run while being incinerated.
posted by nubs at 6:33 PM on September 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

I am legitimately sad about Workman. I like, very specifically, that Blaseball is a chaotic and deadly mess of a game, but I'm still sad.
posted by cortex at 7:01 PM on September 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Blaseball is a horror show, just like 2020. We are just being desensitized for the calamities to come.
posted by slogger at 7:49 PM on September 17, 2020

I bought 2000 peanuts yesterday. Why did I do that?
posted by Ampersand692 at 5:50 AM on September 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

While I'm sad about Workman, I do like the fact he was replaced by Commissioner Vapor.
posted by nubs at 6:26 AM on September 18, 2020

I know it's all sad for most teams but the Spies have ridden all the unpredictable events to having a pretty good team. When all you have are bad players there's no good players to get incinerated I guess lol
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:28 AM on September 18, 2020

I am absolutely baffled that the Mild Wings are in contention this season. We haven't really gotten anything to justify it! (We're currently in the last spot and only one game ahead of the Tigers so it's not clinched yet but this has been a really good season for us!)
posted by restless_nomad at 7:36 AM on September 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

"Spies, every incineration is an upgrade!"

Is there an in world explanation for the teams that only have a square for a logo?
posted by cmfletcher at 7:39 AM on September 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Nevermind, just realized they're emojis.
posted by cmfletcher at 7:44 AM on September 18, 2020

Ha, yes! I was very confused at first that when I'd see Blaseball screenshots/video from someone else the logos were wrong, and then I realized that it's just that its whatever the platform-specific emoji set was. The Canada Moist Talkers are to this day just a white circle for me.

Really curious how the idol situation is going to play out today. All of the Tacos pitchers are last I looked above the big red line, which is tremendous and I'm so curious what'll happen there if they pull it off and get their entire pitching rotation shelled (and also excited that they might only narrowly not pull it off and have one pitcher do 99 games next season). But that + all three peanuts may be hard to pull off because of top-of-leaderboard inertia; I really wonder how many people propping up Axel, PolkaDot, York and Jessica are actually active players who are monitoring lore stuff, because they might just be literally immovable.
posted by cortex at 8:06 AM on September 18, 2020

I have some hopes that there are a set of people who are just milking the maximum cash from their idols before switching. (I've been idolizing Peanutiel Duffy since last season, which has been profitable and also means I don't have to sweat it.)
posted by restless_nomad at 8:16 AM on September 18, 2020

I have been conditioned, by geographic location, family tradition and alma mater, to support losing athletic teams. My whole life has prepared me for the Snackrifice.
posted by benluttrull at 8:41 AM on September 18, 2020

Also between being in my feels about Workman and some general thoughts I've had about the uniquely fast and chaotic daily pace of loss in burgeoning fandom, I ended up writing up a sort of philosophical take on the nature of Blaseball from the perspective of a janitor at the Shoe Thieves stadium: Between Place.
posted by cortex at 9:19 AM on September 18, 2020

Shoe Thieves are currently tied for third in the entire ILB right now with 53-42, four games left to play. Given that all three possible Decrees in this upcoming election do something bad two the top four teams in the league at the end of the regular season, the current discussion in the Shoe Thieves discord channel is the ways in which, with a little luck, we might manage to lose enough to duck down to fifth (or thanks to Divine Favor just lose a tie for fourth).

This whole season has been a ride, really felt like maybe we could be the new worst team in the league after day one and then up, and down, and up some more.

Regardless of whether it affects the Shoes or not, I'm really hoping we get Fifth Base because I think it's hilarious and I want to see the UI changes for it. Walk in the Park would also be funny, though.
posted by cortex at 9:39 AM on September 18, 2020

Honestly I'll be really surprised if Bless Off doesn't win, I think the Crabs have made people... crabby about blessings.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:42 AM on September 18, 2020

And we're in! As the team Twitter points out, we have the same lineup and rotation as we did in season 1 and have only ever gotten one blessing (Jose Haley's mighty Mushroom, which, yeah, but his hitting stats are pretty great despite his moderate star rating.) I think that in all honesty the instability and incinerations are what put us ahead, as our closest rival this season has been the Tigers, who have taken the brunt of it.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:43 AM on September 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Is it just a glitch that the stats in the ticker are so off compared to the stats on SIBR? It looks like it hasn't updated since the first day of season.
posted by mollweide at 12:07 PM on September 18, 2020

Known issue, yeah. The ticker is pretty reliably out of date, might be just literally once a season update.
posted by cortex at 12:08 PM on September 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Well, it seems Blaseball has been taken over by a giant squid who enjoys eating eggs? And followed Jalen in from 'the hall?'
posted by kaibutsu at 2:27 PM on September 18, 2020

Yeah the last hour was kind of A Lot.

The Snackrifice was successful: all five Tacos pitchers were in the top ten of the idol list, and so were all three Peanut players, as were (filling the whomever slots) PolkaDot Patterson and Axel Trololol. As a result, the Tacos pitchers, PDP, and Axel were shelled, like Jessica Telephone and Nagomi Mcdaniels were last season. The three Peanut players (Peanuts Holloway and Bong, Peanutiel Duffy) were instead...Honey-Roasted? Who knows what that means. And York Silk who is eight years old and grounded for saying a cuss, and Jessica Telephone, who is unshelled now but "Super-Allergic", both got safely out of the top ten.

Then the Rotating Peanut showed up to say a few things:

WOW
WOWW
WOWWW
SERIOUSLY
WILD
MILD
WILD
MILD
WILD
MILD
WOW
YES
THAT IS MORE LIKE IT.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SUCH TALENT?
TOP 3 WOULD BE BETTER
WHAT IS THIS THOUGH?
A SHOW OF UNITY?
YOU WITHHOLD YOUR LABOR
YOU THINK THAT GIVES YOU POWER?
PITY

And then the peanut disappeared and a giant squid showed up instead, and also said a few words:

who was that
is it an egg
never ate an egg before
where is hotdogfingers
followed hotdogfingers here
from the hall
from the trench
i am gonna watch
see if that egg comes back

And then it just floated there for a while and now we're back and uh, yeah. Wow.
posted by cortex at 2:48 PM on September 18, 2020

Also, everyone has 10,000 peanuts. Which should take something like 8 hours and 20 minutes of clicking (half that with a squirrel). Huzzah!
posted by q*ben at 2:53 PM on September 18, 2020

I mean, why would you not have a squirrel?
posted by mollweide at 2:59 PM on September 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

After a successful Snackrifice, Sunbeams are working on implementing Plan B and could use more help: get this player (warning: forbidden knowledge) onto the idol leaderboard. (Not sure how we feel about FK here, but this can't be talked about openly on the main Discord.)
posted by Mr. Pokeylope at 3:09 PM on September 18, 2020

The commissioner just got political and it made my day. This game is breaking rules I didn't even know I had internalized.
posted by q*ben at 3:12 PM on September 18, 2020

so, uh, plan b is cancelled, people got surprisingly mad about plan b

whoops
posted by Mr. Pokeylope at 3:47 PM on September 18, 2020

The comment from the Blaseball head office on the entire rotation of the Tacos being shelled: Play must continue
posted by nubs at 4:10 PM on September 18, 2020

A friend of mine wondered, given the Squid's curious hunger, do we need to worry about the Peanuts getting eaten? Or the shelled players?
posted by restless_nomad at 7:13 AM on September 19, 2020

Welp, Shoe Thieves took the Garages to five games but lost 7-5 in the fifth one, so we're out of the playoffs. Jaylen beaned three of our players in game 1 but we got out alive, and that's a comfort.

Now it's Lovers at Crabs, Mild Wings at Garages, game one of the semis. Hoping the Wings get out of it without too much if any damage; Jaylen pitching during an eclipse is an especially scary proposition.
posted by cortex at 11:11 AM on September 19, 2020

Well, Jaylen beaned five of the Wings in game one... Wild ride for the Mild Wings.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:39 AM on September 19, 2020

I think that's the most in one game, previously it seemed to either be 1 bean or 3 beans.
posted by curious nu at 11:52 AM on September 19, 2020

Going through the next game with five unstable players is going to be way more exciting than I really need today.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:25 PM on September 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

Next game in the semis, game 3 Garages at Mild Wings, is eclipse whether. I hope everybody gets out.
posted by cortex at 12:35 PM on September 19, 2020

THE GODS HAVE GIVEN IN WE ARE THE WILD WINGS AGAIN
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:57 PM on September 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

Rest in violence, Miguel Wheeler.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:29 PM on September 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

Heh - "the flavored Wild Winds won the game"
posted by nubs at 4:49 PM on September 19, 2020

Case Sports, Attorney at Bat. A suitable addition to the Wings.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2020

Congrats to the Wings!
posted by curious nu at 8:17 PM on September 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm not even playing the game but I'm getting sucked into the fandom anyway
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:10 AM on September 20, 2020

Someone just noted the possibility that by some turn of blessings the Tacos could end up acquiring Jaylen Hotdogfingers and she'd be their only unshelled pitcher. Bean rain, total league-wide terror all season.
posted by cortex at 10:44 AM on September 20, 2020

oh that's terrifying.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:46 AM on September 20, 2020

that's AMAZING
posted by curious nu at 11:04 AM on September 20, 2020

It looks like the Houston Spies' sacrifice bunt is holding so far, which is great, but there are four player-swap blessings. (It looks like the Wild Wings' nearly-changeless roster is doomed, which makes me sad, unless we somehow win Champs in the Making, which I confess I threw a couple of votes toward.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:12 AM on September 20, 2020

so we have struck a faustian bargain with a squidgod to... perform mass necromancy? and otherwise surrender ourselves, and all of blaseball, for a minor return to a nostalgic past not two months gone?

this is fine. i'm ok with the events that are unfolding currently.
posted by suckerpunch at 12:32 PM on September 20, 2020

*Mints walk into the room* top four baby!
*Bless off decree* our timing is... questionable
posted by q*ben at 5:53 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I made the right call and sat on my votes since Shoes were somehow #3 in the league and I thought Bless Off would pass, but I'm let down that we didn't get Fifth Base. I want more weirdness, not defensive votes!
posted by cortex at 6:48 PM on September 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

The end of the decree is "the microphone cranks the gain," which makes me think there may be some weirdness in exchange for choosing the safe option...
posted by kaibutsu at 9:25 PM on September 20, 2020

Season 8 thread is up!
posted by cortex at 8:19 AM on September 21, 2020