From Mom's Basement

NBA Showdown was more or less an easy game to figure out once you sat with the cards for awhile; Football Champions has a ton more depth. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it was the second-most enjoyable of all of the Wizards Of The Coast sports games to play around with, right behind MLB Showdown. Unfortunately, due to the lack of popularity (at the time) of futbol in America, it was never brought over. Sets were produced in France (for 1 year), England (2 years), and Italy (4 years). I’m not privy to much of the history as someone who didn’t even hear about it until after the Italian set was dead, around 2007. Fortunately, I can quote JL Robert’s excellent BoardGameGeek review (link) of the game, and let you know that the French version suffered from “poor marketing”, while the English version tried to attach itself to the much more popular Subbuteo brand name and that led customers to be confused due to the existence of a previous CCG.

Unlike the simplifications of the other movement based games of football and basketball, Football Champions actually used a 3×3 field that players could move around in. You could shoot the ball from the line right in front of the keeper. Field players had five stats: Pace, Tackle, Shot, Skill, and Header. Goalkeepers had Save, Penalty Save, and Skill. Icons were also introduced on players cards and added to the depth of the game by giving certain players bonuses if they stayed on a certain wing of the field, or allowed players to move without succeeding on their move roll. The game only used six sided dice and was based around a system of challenges. Without bringing in the action cards, challenges between on-field players were usually limited to Pace or Tackle. The defense would choose the type of challenge, and the players stats were compared in that type of challenge. For example, a Pace challenge between a defender with a Pace of 7 and a forward with a Pace of 6 was a net +1 advantage to the defense. Both players rolled their die, and whoever won the challenge (ties re-rolled) would gain or keep control of the ball. Once there was a shot on goal attempt, it was Save vs. Shot, with ties becoming a corner kick.

The action cards were the basis of time for the game. Much like NFL Showdown, when you ran out of cards, the defending team rolled to see if it was halftime or end of the game. However, the action cards and our American strategy cards were quite a bit different in a few regards. You could only have two of any given card in your deck, and the deck size was only 25 cards. Because you drew two cards after every challenge and started out with five cards, the length of a half was usually not more than twelve challenges, which goes by pretty fast. The lack of variation and constant card draw also means that your strategy is very easy to establish and keep going. The other major difference was that cards could be played for their arrows. To explain in plain terms, most cards had arrows that pointed in 9 directions, compass-esque. When you used a card for an arrow, you could use it for a pass or a shot, and you would get +2 for the challenge, or you could use it to move a player if your move roll failed. Not only was this (for the vast majority of the cards) a better idea than using them for their actual text, but it shifted a majority of the power in the game to the offense. I’m pretty sure that no one was playing for ties in a card game anyway. Because of this ability, cards that had arrows pointed forward, or diagonally forward in one of two directions, are very important to offense.

Before we get into the direction I ended up going in as far as a team, I should project my opinion out there as far as the rules go. Between the 2001-02 English rules and 2002-03 English rules, there is an enormous amount of change that I think generally is for the better. From my glances at the Italian rule books, I don’t see a lot of difference or changes in their next two years after 02-03. I prefer the 02-03 rules mainly because I think the team building rules are more fun, and also because fatigue counters create a different team strategy that I think complicates the game for the better. However, you should be very clear with whoever you’re playing with whether you are going by 01-02 or 02-03 rules, because they introduce icons in 02-03 that don’t exist in 01-02, and they also change what some of the icons do. If you do play with 01-02 rules, I suggest you not play with any players beyond those years, because the point values really change based on the icon changes.

Either way, let me point you to my enhanced spoiler. Once again I have to thank JL Robert for putting together the skeleton (01-02), while I filled in the next three years and added the English action cards (I’d add the other ones if I could understand them; for the most part though, the 01-02 action cards are the same thing). There are three omissions and I’m sure I didn’t get 100% of the cards right, but I’m pretty content with what I have. The 02-03 team building rules are as follows: 1300 points, only four players are allowed to be under 100 points, and only two players are allowed to be under 50 points. You get up to five substitutes and a 300 point budget to add them to your team, but they can’t ever leave you with more than 1300 points on the field at a time.

Without further ado:

25 Card Action Deck
Change Of Pace x2
Conditioning x2
Force The Play x2
Heads Up x2
High Cross x2
Manouevere x1 (want second one for Motion)
Marked Out x2
Motion x1
Physical Game x1 (want second one for a Tight Defending)
Play It Safe x2
Pressing Game x2
Tight Defending x2

GK: De Sanctis IT 03, 155, 8-2-7 Shot Stopper
LDB: Bridge EN 02, 173, 9-8-3-5-7
CDB: Keown EN 01, 136, 6-9-3-6-8
RDB: Oddo IT 02, 146, 7-6-7-6-6, Pass, Right Wing +1
ROVER: Kouassi FR 01, 19, 3-4-5-3-5
LMID: Maini IT 03, 58, 5-7-6-5-6, Back
MID: Beckham EN 02, 319, 9-9-9-10-7, Pass
RMID: Ba IT 01, 104, 7-6-5-4-5, Right Wing +1
ROVER: Danic FR 01, 25 4-4-4-3-3
LFWD: Ferguson EN 01, 112, 6-6-7-6-10
RFWD: Langella IT 04, 53, 9-7-7-6-6, Left-Right
Subs
Zambrotta 03, D/MF, 144, 7-7-5-7-5, Left Wing +1
Cole 01, D, 144, 8-6-5-6-7, Left Wing +1

Or to put the players on a grid:
[Ferguson][None][Langella]
[Maini][Beckham, Danic][Ba]
[Bridge][Keown, Kouassi][Oddo]
[De Sanctis]

On defense, this team boasts two 9′s and an 8, with both high speed guys outside to prevent getting burned by Change Of Pace, which forces Tackle challenges on the wings to become Pace challenges. Kouassi is a scrub, but he’ll dive in whatever square the offense is attacking to give the additional bonus for having two players in a square. Traditionally that’s called a rover, but because of the players extreme lack of usefulness in any other role, I like to call him Chip Block, after the ventriloquist dummy in King of the Hill. Danic plays the same basic role in the midfield, but he also will occassionally go forward. Oddo is intentionally the weak link in the backline because I want him to win challenges and start the counterattack with his Pass Icon, which gives a +1 bonus to the next challenge when he passes it. Combine that with the arrows and you’ll basically see him sending it to Beckham with a +3, plus the bonus for two men in a square. As if Becks wasn’t already a rough guy to try and win a challenge from.

From a strategical perspective, I only have 7 cards that I would classify as solely defensive, I’d like a eighth but I don’t have another Physical Game, Tight Defending helps against people with dominant forwards that I don’t want taking shots, saying that they have to pass again before they can shoot. Should they not have one, I’ll use the two up arrows on the card. Force The Play stops the offense from playing cards for their arrows until you get the ball back, which is extremely helpful. Particularly since De Sanctis’ Shot Stopper icon grants him +2 to all saves on shots without arrows. Pressing Game forces your opponent to discard three cards if he gets down to seven, and killing your opponent’s hand is the best way to stop his offensive sets. It works especially well with Force The Play since your opponents offensive game will probably rely on arrows and he’ll be holding the cards. Finally, Physical Game is the most dominant action card in the game in my opinion: +1 to all your players Tackle, plus every time you win a challenge, your opponent has to discard a card. That is a complete lockdown card and almost makes it worth playing four Tempo cards just to avoid having stuck in play. I’m a bit limited by my collection, but I’ll consider bumping up to that.

Offensively, my strategy is pretty simple. I paid 319 points for David Beckham, and he’s going to get the ball. Once he has the ball, he’s got three options. One is to dribble up the middle if I get a six on the move roll, since it’s likely that me separating my two forwards will leave the opponent weak in the middle. He could try to feed Langella, who might be the best card in the game production wise and was probably a misprint. With an arrow and a Beckham pass, he’s got a 10 tackle, and if you can drop down a Change Of Pace, he gets to use his 12 speed. A 7 shot is nothing to sneeze at, but even if you don’t want to take it, you can hold and attempt to cross it to Ferguson or Beckham, especially if you have a Play It Safe around, which means there’s a 66% chance you don’t even have to deal with a challenge from you opponent. However, the sneakier play is to use High Cross to feed Ferguson. Cross says if you use it for it’s arrow, the challenge starts as a Header challenge, and Ferguson has a 10 header rating, the highest in the game. Combine the +2 from the arrow and the +1 from the pass, and Ferguson will be starting out at 13. Whats more, he gets to take the shot at 12 too, since High Cross also forces you to take your shot with your Header rating. Throw in a Heads Up for good measure, and you’re at 14. That’s a pretty solid chance of notching a goal, I’d say.

Ba and Maini are solid players as well but they’re mainly there to win the ball and pass it to Beckham, not do anything spectacular. The substitutes are both for Oddo. Cole comes in to lend his 9 Pace on defense when we’ve got the lead, and Zambrotta is for when the team needs to put more players forward. Love Cole’s role, I might still try and find someone better than Zambrotta, perhaps a forward. I’d love to get a Beckham replacement in case he gets worn down by fatigue cards but the point limit screws me there.

The skeleton of this team largely survives in 01-02 rules, since almost all of the strategy cards are still acceptable in that format. The 1100 points pares it down to even more of a stars and scrubs format though. This is my crack at that roster:

F Niall Quinn 143
F Oliver Bierhoff 48
M David Linares 23
M David Beckham 286
M Olivier Sorlin 66

D Mark Fish 182
D Fabio Macellari 94
D Jimmy Algerino 73
D Blaise Kouassi 19
D Mohamed Bradja 19
GK Gregory Wimbee 144

It’s basically a toned down version of the 02-03 one. Everyone is a little less effective, and Quinn really becomes the go-to forward. It goes into a 5-3-2 just to stay under, points-wise.

I haven’t created a Fatigue deck to play test against yet, but this is my reasoning behind picking this deck first: the cards have 100% success rate. Fatigue only works 50% of the time. I did consider putting some fatigue cards in here, but I think it’s really a strategy that you need about half the deck devoted to. You need to get two fatigue cards on the big guns so that they don’t just recover at halftime. The other problem with it in my eyes is that the game just moves so fast that there isn’t really time for the fatigue bonus to be as cost-effective as the arrows you’ll be using here. That said, I’m interested to see how a fatigue deck would play against this team, as I think it’s the best of the other strategies. Some other strategies that are possible: a strict by the numbers team (that team probably doesn’t use Beckham, who is far from fairly priced), a team built around an awesome goalkeeper, a focus on getting your opponent’s players a red card or injury, and a team built around Test Of Skill that utilized players with poor Pace and Tackle but excellent Skill and Shot like my boy Matt Le Tissier.

Unlike NBA, this game has quite a few different and possible strategies. It’s a very simple game at it’s core, but it’s very deep the further into it you look. I like the quickness, I like the fact that your strategy can be ripped out quickly or considered slowly. It’s a very charming game. Getting a 01-02 English starter is pretty simple and can be done in a few different locations. Just remember that you are going to have to pay a pretty steep fee to get things shipped from overseas, especially if you’re buying a box or two. In my buying experience, the easiest things to find are the 01-02 English and Itallian and the most difficult things to find are the 02-03 cards, particularly the Italian ones which I’ve still never seen an actual booster pack of.

~ by Rivers on 2009/11/15.

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Tags: card games, football champions