This night Travelling Clinic played its 100th match in the box. This 100 games was my most exciting period as a BB coach.

For a long time before the creation of the Clinic I toyed with the tought of making a Dwarf team like it is made. Once I had a famous and successful all zombie team, the Stoned City Slowwalkers which was a great fun to coach. Having only MA4 players taught me good zone positioning which might be one part of the game in which I am really good now. As the Dwarf Blocker is similar to a Zombie but better in every way, it was very tempting to make a Dwarf team which is based on good Longbeards.

I was thinking on how the Blockers should be developed and soon I came up with the idea to pick Guard and Stand Firm as starter skills. I imagined 13 Blockers with this two skills and a Runner and I knew that this is something I want. 13×110k + 100k (Runner with Block) and 150k (3 Re-Rolls) is around 1750k with the Fan Factors and for that you get an extremely powerful team. Obviously the third skill is Mighty Blow and once some of the Blockers get it the opponent gets even more crushed.

Why I prefer Stand Firm over Mighty Blow? Well, Mighty Blow is gambling while Stand Firm is sure. And Stand Firm breaks the opponent's block chain. We are all used to block and knock down or push and follow up or not according to our needs. Stand Firm breaks this badly, especially if spammed which seems to get more popularity recently, perhaps because of the success of the Clinic. And if the opponent fails to knock down some Blockers with Stand Firm and Guard in the line and the ones which where proned stand up, this team hits back instantly. Even if the opponent rolls pows, its line do not progress. There is a very little chance to crush this line even with some Claw players according to my experience. There is only 1 or 2 turns to get about three dwarves out of the field and if that fails then you can almost only trust your one Blitz action with a Claw player to save the situation. It will sometimes do but probably won't. In contrast, Guard and Mighty Blow players are easily pushed back by ST4 Claw guys, most Guards has no use, and even if the number of two dice blocks are evened out, Mighty Blow is inferior to Mighty Blow with Claw.

Claw is significantly there in the box above 1800 TV. I made the team in the BlackBox division. First, getting a game for this kind of team would be hard in Ranked and getting fair matches are even harder. I feel that I would end up starting many games with a slight feeling if being unfair to my partner and I do not want that. Yet during this 100 games there were public diatribes against me and the team. Some of you might remember that.

Once made, the team progressed without a sign of anything can stop it to reach 3000 TV and soon that was my first target milestone. By that time, there was the original Deathroller, an AG5 Runner, an ST5 Blitzer and an ST5 Blocker in the roster. The team was awesome, it made to the Dwarf XFL final without much difficulty and lost against Swiss Mountain Brewers because of nuances.

But after the lost WO Qualifier I came to a decision which caused our hard times which is hopefully ended now with the very last management decision.

As besides the high TV target this team is mainly developed for major tournaments, something has to get done to resolve its weakness at the time: its poor effectiveness against fast agile teams. I knew the solution and it is Diving Tackle. I started to pick Diving Tackle to prepare the Clinic for the next major. And because I picked Diving Tackle early as second and third skills, I weakened the team which caused its downward spiral lasted until today.

With some unlucky matches I lost some of my Guard, Stand Firm, Mighty Blow players and we started to get very short on Mighty Blowers soon. As the TV remained high which kept the team in the clawkiller zone we were unable to get the necessary amount of not only Guard, Stand Firm, Mighty Blow players but also we ended up short on Guard, Stand Firm ones. The typical match scenario which used to be a happy march became a struggle.

The nice positive record of the team went negative for the last 30 games and I lost my Legend Dwarf coach status very soon and now I am an Emerging Star. Both my ST5 guys died. Never had two +ST +ST in my team before and that ended. Ironically this bad season started after my answers to the public claims I mentioned above.

I comforted myself by the thought that this is temporary and I only need to get those Diving Tacklers their other skills. For that they has to get to 51 SPP. None of them reached that yet.

I was also thinking on retiring the team and start another. My AG5 Runner prevented that for long. The main reason was not its struggle but its theme. I was not satisfied with it as the team was not matched to its bio message. On the top of that, the message was too harshly presented. Recently I became a less material and more spiritual mind. This deficiency caused me discomfort with the team and its bad performance was an addition to that feeling.

And so we get to the 100th match, a solid 0-3 loss against Chivite's Necromantics. It was time to do something with the team and it was done.

First, I rewrited the team bio. It is now connected with the design and style of the team. And second, I cut the team massively and its TV became 560k lower than it was before the 100th match which provided some push towards this decision by make us loosing two players including a 26 SPP Stand Firm, Diving Tackle Blocker. I fired the Deathroller, our two cheerleaders and assistant coaches, and discarded a Re-Roll. Still I kept the two Diving Tacklers, one being 2 SPP short to get its Mighty Blow, the other being 18 SPP short to that. At the new TV level, it should be more easy to get to that point.

From now on, I will never take Diving Tackle on the Blockers before Guard, Stand Firm, and Mighty Blow. After these three skills we go for Dauntless and Grab and Diving Tackle as 4th skill. A Legend Blocker might have something of Pro, Break Tackle, Dodge, Jump Up. +AV prevails over +MA but only as 4th or later skill. +ST is naturally taken which improves the chance of taking Break Tacke as 4th normal skill thereafter. +AG will be not taken on Blockers.

The team will have a single Runner and a single Blitzer, a Deathroller once above 2100 TV, and maybe a single Troll Slayer but I am undecided with that. We had one but probably it caused more trouble than solution. Once on field you will lost focus as you have to protect him too.

With the argue rule, Deathroller is very good on high TV, and is very effective to mark the Claw players. Not a big loss if injured as you do not want him with too much skills anyway: Guard, Block, Grab, Multiple Block, the last one barely worth its 20 TV but the other normal skills are even worse. Plus you might not want your Secret Weapon to worth too much TV right?

So the Clinic is here and we are looking ahead of the next 100 games with high hopes. I want them to make a nice performance in some future major tournament. As I rarely play and I am in CIBBL and DLE (both recommended) already, thus that will not change. We are not in a rush though: If the team is well designed it will slowly grow in TV and win potential by itself. I thing that the new way will lead us to that.

Thanks for reading!