So, another year, and another Chaos Cup down. North America's only NAF major is in the books.

For context, my first Chaos Cup was in 2017 and I have attended every year since except 2020 because I just got promoted at work and couldn’t take the time off.

My first 3 years I played chaos dwarves, having an overall record of 13/4/1.

In 2017 I took 3rd place despite having the best overall record because at the time, if you didn’t play table 1 the last round you couldn’t win. Sad thing was that I was the 2nd ranked player going into that game but in round 1 had played and tied the top ranked person. So, I played and won table 2 and was unable to win the tourney. They changed the rule after that year.

In 2018 I played table two in round six again, and drew that game, to finish 4th

In 2019 I played the top table, in round 6 only to lose to pro elves that got their only TD from a critical 5+ dodge and pickup, 3+ dodge, 2+ dodge for the score. I lost 0-1. So I finished 3rd

2020 I didn’t play, job.

2021 I didn’t play the meta. I played starless necromantic against Morg/Hakflem underworld losing round 6 table 1, 1-2. Finished 3rd
.
2022 I played the New Norse, went 4-1-1 with my loss in round 4 against a Lord Borak that fouled me into oblivion. I can’t find the exact results of that chaos cup but I think I finished somewhere between 8-15th.


So, this year I came to Chaos Cup with the new vampires. The build was 120, and it was tiered. Vampires were still in tier 2 so I was able to get 54 spp to assign my team. I took a 15 player roster with a block Vargheist, two block/pro thrower, a guard/pro blitzer, naked runner, 10 thralls, 3 RRs, 2 coaches and 2 cheerleaders. I didn’t take a 16th player because in round 6 you would get a special star player that was in one half an amazon and the other half a saurus.
Round 1 (table 58) I faced Matt Vanderby (Delevus), and his 244.16 rated vampires. He was the one matchup I was really hoping to avoid until at least day 2, because I believe he is the best vampire coach I have seen.
I kicked to Matt, and was able to turn him over with some good hypnotic gazes, and a decent enough bounce to throw to a thrall and score on defense. I went into halftime up 1-0. Matt played very aggressively and allowed me an opportunity to run up an opposite sideline with the naked runner and score 2-0 turn 3 second half. Then in desperation he attempted a very accelerated attack down 2-0, I turned him over again, and was able to score on turn 8 of the second half to win 3-0. Matt had a down tournament, especially for him and ended up 3/1/2 finishing 55th.

Round 2 (table 6) I faced Josh (jmeinel) who was playing amazons with the Zoat.
I won’t go into this game that much as I completely diced Josh and beat him 4-0 which could possibly have been even worse. I was able to remove Jaguars and Zoat alike and Josh started playing on tilt. Josh recovered from the beating to finish 28th with a 4/0/2 record.

Round 3 (table 1) I faced Max Hanna (keshdr) with his Skaven.
At this point in the tournament Max had already scored 12(!) touchdowns, which I said sounded like a good total for a tournament, however he had done so in just 2 games. This game I lost the toss and received. I was able to knock down a few of his players and make a run down the sideline after stunning his wrestle/strip ball gutter. He proceeded to foul me and remove players so I scored early hoping for my 4 kos to return. I got 1, he had 2 kos that both returned. This was a theme for the tourney. My kos were almost like injuries based upon their ability to return. He quickly scored to equal it up 1-1. I was able to score right before the half on a 2+, 3+, 2+ to go into the 2nd half up 2-1 but rapidly losing the war of attrition. When I set up I had 8 players (out of an original 15) despite that I was able to turn him over and score to go up 3-1. He rapidly scored to make it 3-2 and nearly scored on turn 8 of the second half but he needed a 6+ pass with a line rat after I “punted” with my remaining thrower. He failed that and lost 3-2. Max finished the tournament 2/2/2 but amassed an incredible 20! tds.

Round 4 (table 1) I faced Colin (Bazakastine) and his lizardmen.
This game was a back and forth affair that I thought I was absolutely going to lose, however I was able to get a few key gazes and sacked the ball carrier knocking the ball out of bounds. I was able to pick up the ball with a thrall, then I got sacked. He had a critical moment where he needed a 5+ to pick up the ball, if he does, it is probably game over so he rerolls the fail only to fail again. I was able to free the ball, pick it up and score. Final score turns out to be 2-1. I was the lone blemish on his record as he went 5/0/1. However due to the weird structure of chaos cup (though it helped me this time), because he wasn’t on table 1 or 2 was ineligible for 1st though 3rd place.

So after day 1 I was 4/0/0 and hoping that this year was going to be the year that I finally won the major after 3(!) 3rd place finishes.

To start day 2, round 5 (table 1) I faced off against Steven (Drakenspear) and his underworld team.
Steven is undefeated with underworld and this tournament didn’t change that. We were only on turn 6 when the half time warning was called. So, on turn 8 of the first half he took too much time and didn’t finish his turn. He asked for more time, but I declined (maybe I am a bastard, or maybe not). I had an opportunity to score needing not to roll consecutive 1s having a reroll. I needed a 2+, 2+,2+ to score and double 1 the second 2+. The second half I got the ball back and attempted to score on my turn of the second half. I needed a 2+, 3+, 2 die for a crowd push on his gutter runner (which I took instead of the dodge to make his attempt to score back harder). I declared the blitz figuring if I had to use my reroll or pro I wouldn’t actually blitz the gutter because the score would be bigger. I however passed the 2+, and 3+ dodge to surf the ball carrier, and rolled double skulls!!! Had I gotten any other result I would have used pro here on a skull or both down to get a potential crowd surf but skull/skull necessitated the reroll. I rerolled into skull/both down. Both players had block so I dodge, success, and rushed for the score, rolled a 1, failed pro and proceeded to injure myself at the goal line. He recovered the ball and was setting up for a TTM action to win the game and I knocked down his goblin and gazed both of this snotlings to ensure the 1-1 tie. Drakenspear would finish the tournament 5/1/0 and finished in 2nd place.

After the draw and due to a tie on table 3, round 6 saw me at table 1 to face Sol (Sol naf too) with his skaven build. This was the game we got an extra player. This extra chaos player has always managed to trip me up despite knowing how to use them. This time was no different however the dice that were always either great or okay enough to win or draw left me. We played the entire game in a blizzard (really not good for me) I won’t go into too many details, but I’ll sum it up like this. It was turn 4 of the second half before he had a block that didn’t result in my player going down (occasionally a first block with frenzy was a push/push that resulted in a knock down) this included 2 uphill blocks on a ball carrier (wrestle/strip ball) gutter runner, and at least 4 one die blocks. Also at one critical juncture, he 4+,4+ with a rat ogre to mark a downed runner. While he did roll 2 sets of 1s to pick up a ball at different points in the game, my dice went ICE cold. I ended my turn on double 1s at least 6 times, and I kind of wish I had the fumbbl stats factor to see how many 1s I ended up rolling. I would say it was likely north of 33% probably around 40%. My opponent on many occasions remarked that couldn’t ever remember a dicing like this and hated it came in a championship game, but glad he was on the good side not the bad side of it. On each of his last 2 tds he rolled a blitz on me, which sealed the deal as I was attempting a OTS down 2-0 knowing I needed it to have a chance to tie. If this had been a boxing match I would have received a TKO on that 1st blitz because it was truly over then. Sol would finish the tournament 6/0/0 and get 1st place.

So, the result was my 4th(!) 3rd place finish at chaos cup. I am mentally fatigued at this point badly but after a few days I hope to get back on fumbbl and play so more. I was asked if I would trade all my 3rds for 1 1st. I said no, but I would easily trade 2 or 3 of them for 1st place finish! For anyone else that has had a similar experience of getting to the top only to fail again and again I’d love to hear if you were finally able to get past the devastating disappointment and achieve victory or if it has always eluded you.

Thanks for reading.