New Myachi Game Idea

by Crazy Ivan

This could have been a continuation of my ongoing "Reasons Why I Love My Job" series because moments like this one are exactly why I became a Myachi Master.  The moment of innovation is what it's all about.  That being said, I'm pretty fired up about this idea so I should apologize in advance for what I suspect will be a pretty long entry.

The concept for the game is actually pretty simple for people who already know Myachi.  It's essentially a variation of Fu that would be played on a court a bit smaller than a basketball court.  It would be played in teams of three.

Team Fu is, of course, nothing new.  We've done it many times before at HQ and the House of Skills, but we've always played before that each player has a Myachi and the team is simply working together.  The rub in this game is that each team will be sharing one Myach, which adds a whole new element of passing and catching to the game.

Here's how it would break down:

The Objective:

Each team has one Myachi.  The teammates must try to keep their Myachi off the ground while simultaneously acting to knock the opposing players Myachi down.

I should mention that there are plenty of restrictions on what you can and can't do to knock the Myachi off the opposing player's hand, just like in regular Myachi Fu.  You can only strike the palm or engage arm to arm to disrupt their balance.  There are actually quite a few rules to this, but I don't want to get into all the details here or this would be a really long blog.  Suffice to say, the goal is to keep things safe so if you want to know the rules, ask if what you're doing is safe.  If it isn't, it's against the rules.

Gameplay:

I figure this game would take place in three periods, each about ten minutes long, though I could see that in practice it might be easier to do four seven minute quarters or something like that.  Each time a team's Myachi hits the ground the opposing team would earn one point.

When a point is earned the ref would note it, but the game would keep going.  The game would continue, allowing the team whose Myachi was grounded two seconds to pick it up and get it into play.  During this "dead" time, opposing players would have to remain at least five feet away.

I should note that while there would be an "out of bounds" line around the court, this would count only for players.  No matter where the Myachi lands, if it isn't controlled by a person on the team, the other team gets a point.  If a Myachi was dropped or passed out of bounds, the game would stop temporarily while the sack can be retrieved or another Myachi can be substituted.

Penalties:

Like any sport, this one would need plenty of rules and at least two referees (one keeping an eye on each Myachi).  There would be rules governing proper offense (legal striking, legal footwork, no close fisted stuff, no eye-gouging... stuff like that), rules about proper defense (no trap moves, no defensive strikes, no laying your palm flat on the ground so nobody can strike it, etc.) and rules governing the playing field such as out of bounds lines.

This game would have hockey-style penalties, meaning that when a team member is penalized they'll have to spend a certain amount of time in a penalty box and the other team will have to play short handed during these periods.  Two fouls on the same team could easily lead to a three on one situation.

Obviously more severe striking penalties could also lead to things like disqualification, but most rules would be assigned a certain number of penalty seconds so that if a player used a Hulk to defend, they might have to spend thirty seconds in the penalty box but if someone shoved another player over while they were trying to catch an inbound pass, that might earn them two minutes or more.

Substitutions:


This would be a rigorous and demanding game so to field a team of three, you'd probably need at least one sub for each player, but more likely if this was a pro level sport you'd need a team of about nine or ten.  Substitutions would happen in game like in hockey or lacrosse.  Obviously, the player who is holding the Myachi could not check out without tossing the Myachi to a different player.

Positions:

There would be no rules governing where on the court a player of a particular position could or couldn't be and the rules would be the same for every player.  We're only going over this so that the strategy section will make sense, but I could only really see making a substantive difference once the paddles are available.  Different players could have different sized and shaped paddles based on their specialty.

Each player would do everything from time to time, but one would suspect that if this became a pro level sport, certain players would have specialties.  Below are descriptions of what a player's primary duty would be.

(Note: The "Mark" is the player who is currently holding the Myachi, regardless of what position they play.  During the game, the Mark will alternately be the Defender, the Striker and the Safety as they pass the Myachi around.)

The Defender would be the teams best at playing keep away with that Myachi.  They would also have to be really good at catching inbound passes and making accurate throws.  Most likely they would be the tallest player on the team as well, since reach is a bit more important in defense than it is for offense... especially team offense.

The Striker would be the teams best at knocking the other team's Myachi down.  Unlike a Defender, the Striker would need to be fast in a number of ways.  They would need to be quick on their feet so they can chase down a Myachi that's being passed around but they'll also need fast hands once they engage the Mark.  The Striker would also have the lightest defensive abilities so he or she wouldn't have to be as good as the others at making solid long distance catches.

The Safety would be half Defender and half Striker.  The Safety would probably be the team captain and their job would be to move between the Defender and the Striker depending on who needed help most.  They would do a lot of the catching when the Defender got in trouble and it would be their job to make sure the Striker knew if they suddenly needed to shift to defense and be ready for a catch.

Strategy:

Now it gets interesting.  With three person teams, there would be 4 basic ways that you could play the game and to keep things simple, we'll refer to them as 3D, 2D, 1D and 0D, each one signifying how many players would be acting to "defend" their Myachi rather than focusing on attacking the other team's Mark.

3D - This would be the "Max Protect" of the sport.  When a team has a comfortable lead, they would probably shift to some kind of 3D type strategy.  It also might be a good idea at the beginning just to play it safe as you feel out your opponent.  Ultimately, this strategy would only get used in special circumstances and might happen during about 10% of the game.

2D - This would be a pretty common defensive strategy.  It would basically involve the Defender and Safety playing an elaborate game of "Monkey in the Middle" with the opposing teams attacker(s).  During this time, only the Striker would be actively pursuing the other team's Myachi so it would obviously work best against a team working in a 1D.  Teams would likely shift in and out of this strategy throughout the game and it would probably happen during about 40% of the game.

1D - This would be the other primary defensive strategy.  If you think your Defender is far better than their Striker, your team might just gang up on their Defender.  It would result either in them dropping into a 2D or their Defender being left on a two to one island.  Of course, this would mean that you'd be essentially putting your defender in the same position.  This would probably be the most common strategy, though teams would shift out of it to a 2D quite often.  It would happen for about 45% of the game.

0D - This is the equivalent of pulling your goalie in hockey (sorry about all the hockey references by the way... this game actually wouldn't be much like hockey at all).  This would be a strategy that you would have to use when you were down by a few points and it would mean sending your Mark after the other teams Mark right along with the Striker and the Defender.  It would be a dangerous strategy so it would probably only happen for about 5% of the game.

Now, in reality, things would move so quickly you would never know if a team was in a 2D or a 1D or what.  Teams would have complicated systems of passes that would work to move the Myachi away from the opposition's best attacker.  There would be screens and fakes that would be designed to buy your team's Striker more time to advance.

Obviously you could write pages about all the potential strategies here.  You could try to move their Mark toward yours to gain a brief 3 on 1 advantage.  You could use high arching throws across the whole court to wear down their attackers.  You could cluster around your defender and force their attacker to one side of the court then try to screen them in while someone else moved further away.  You could try to temp them into making a pass by acting like you were focused on their Mark.  Some teams would use minimal passes and a lot of doubled up defense while others would use crisp passing and focus on offense.  The strategies seem almost infinite.

Highlights:

It seems to me that this game would have more potential as a spectator sport than pretty much any other Myachi game that we've ever played.  It would be a bit like lacrosse except their would be no goals, but there would also be a heavy martial arts element to the scoring.  There would be action everywhere since you'd be watching two separate Myachis instead of focusing on one ball.  There would be spectacular catches, throws, attacks, saves, rushes, jukes, fakes, verts, screens and, most importantly, strikes.

Imagine some of the awesome saves that might happen when a Myachi gets knocked up in the air.  By the existing rules of Myachi Fu, you can't impede a player who is trying to make a save and I would think that rule would carry over into this game as well.  That would make for some awesome diving catches and kick saves.

There would also be plenty of full court passes designed to get a Myachi out of trouble when the Mark gets buried.  There would be plenty of action at the point of the attack because two players would essentially be engaging in a brief martial arts bout.  All the great highlights from a normal game of Fu would, of course, work their way into this game as well.

In addition you would have all these cool situations that would arise from penalties when two players have to take on three (or one takes on three or two take on one or two take on two or one takes on one).  Strategies would change in a hurry and I suspect one of the coolest shots you'll see in a game is where one player is desperately defending until the split second the penalty ends and then they throw high to the player who is just coming out of the penalty box.

Fakes and jukes would dominate in this game as much as any other, but the best highlights might come from intercepted passes.  If you can leap in and knock away the other team's pass, that's worth a point so there would probably be some really athletic jumps and dives that would end in slightly tipped throws as well.

Conclusion:

This game must be played and played soon.  Luckily I know just where to find volunteers so I'm hoping that by Tuesday night we'll not only have some real world experience with this game, we'll hopefully also have some video to go with it.